


Aunt May Dies

by Jumpp



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Anxiety, Arguing, Canon Relationships, Gen, Happy tries his best, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Tony is a terrible father, both peter and tony gotta be difficult teenagers, its not a cute adoption fic, panic attakcs, pure peter wump, realistic angst atleast, spider sense, things could go better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-03 12:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11531940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jumpp/pseuds/Jumpp
Summary: And Peter think's he's dying, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda new to the whole marvel side of things. Always been a DC kid, but Spider-man really hit me hard. As soon as I walked out of the theater, I thought about ways to make Peter miserable. Taking away his Aunt seemed to take the cake, so...
> 
> Set maybe a couple weeks after the movie ends.

 

It’s a Thursday afternoon when Peter came home from school to an empty apartment. He kicks his wet shoes off at the door and hangs up his jacket. It was just his luck that it would start raining halfway home.

“May?” Peter called out. He figured the two of them could have a stay in day. Watch some old re-runs, maybe order in. But May never answers. A quick walk through the apartment told Peter she wasn’t home.

He didn’t worry yet, because Aunt May goes out sometimes and if she gives him space, then yeah, he should give her space too. Even though Peter isn’t worried in the slightest, he shoots her a quick text asking what they would be doing for dinner.

He kept his phone in his back pocket but never heard it buzz. Every hour or so, in between chemistry homework and hacking away at a English paper due Wednesday, he’d check it anyway. He puts in headphones and turns the volume up blaringly loud (because he needs it loud, Peter sometimes likes only hearing one thing) and waits. As dinner time rolled around, he picked up his phone again and played with some options before picking a message that didn’t sound too needy. Because Aunt May, especially after all this Spider-man stress he’s inflicted on her, just needs space.

 **Made some pasta for dinner, want me to save you some?** His finger hovers over the send button. Then he deletes it all and starts again. That text would mean he’d actually have to make pasta to save her some.

 **I found something to eat. Are you coming home soon?** He deleted that too. So much for sounding needy.

But something in his head was whining. It was whining and groaning and shaking. It was the feeling he got when something was about to go wrong. The feeling that told him to check behind him when someone was looking and to duck when something was thrown at him and to move to the left when a gun went off. Okay, so it, this feeling, didn’t go off all that often, but it was strong and primal and was nearly always right. It’s a freaking sixth sense as far as Peter is concerned. The boy’s eyes started to hurt from staring so intensely at the screen and that feeling doubled when he checked the time. To hell with seeming needy, he thought.

 **Where did you go?** He pressed send before he would chicken out. He finally takes the damn earphones out and he notices that it’s raining hard. Harder than he thought anyway.

It’s probably a girls night out. Maybe she’s in a movie and hasn’t looked at the phone. No, movies aren’t that long. She could’ve gone to two back to back movies and hadn’t looked at the phone. But the hairs on Peter’s neck are standing straight up, and his breathing is loud but he can’t figure out why.  

Ten minutes later and Peter called Aunt May. Three times.

Ten minutes of staring at the chemistry textbook and gripping a pencil with white knuckles, and he calls again. Only when he repeatedly starts breaking the led does Peter give up on his Chemistry notes and moves to something more mind numbing. Like TV. No, scratch that. Like pre recorded commercial free TV.

His cellphone buzzes.

But it’s Happy.

 

**Looks like things got a little rough down there. Are you okay?**

 

He blinks. Even after reading it a couple times over, he couldn’t make sense of it.

Then Ned texts him.

 

**Dude. Check the news.**

 

And so Peter does.

Every local station played the same coverage on a huge accident on 30th street. One car apparently started a chain reaction that involved four other vehicles, a half dozen pedestrians, and a SUV slamming into the front of a two-story convenience store and sailing through glass and brick alike. The building, not a new building by any means, so it appears, collapsed when first responders pulled into the scene. Footage of a building that dissolves into a pile of rubble kept playing while Peter starts to think.

Man, an accident like that is something out of a movie, Peter thought. An accident like that he would’ve heard.  Unless, maybe, he had headphones in and it happened nearly 14 blocks from here while the sky poured rain.

His throat felt tight, his ears hot.

Peter got a new message from Ned. **Where u there? They didn’t mention u**

The firemen are pulling the last people out of the back of the building now.

Peter turns up the news so it’s loud. So it can be the only thing that he hears. The neighbors are probably mad and the old TV’s speakers probably don’t like it but Peter just wants to focus on it.

At least 20 dead, speaks a blond reporter. Many unidentified, a few still maybe in there.

Peter wondered if anyone still in there could still be alive. If they were alive, sucking in cement dust and pinned in the dark by rebar and concrete. Could any normal person survive that for so long? Would _he_ be able to survive it for that long, even? Tons of cement like a blanket, broken pipes and pools of water growing underneath them. Then he wondered if the weight was suffocating them, each breath harder to pull in. Surrounded only by the sounds of their own panic, a heartbeat so strong it hurt. It hurt bad. Pressing and heavy and with water slipping over his head and nose-

Peter blinked. His breathing was tight and bile was licking the back of his throat. Whatever he was about to do, he couldn’t do now.

With that primal feeling still humming away in his head, Peter calls Aunt May one more time. Instead of waiting through thirty seconds of ringing it went straight to voicemail and he couldn’t tell if that was better or not.

He’s loosely aware of the neighbor knocking through the wall between apartments, and he turns off the TV. Peter waits. He paces and waits.

Only when he walks into the kitchen to get some water did he find a note of the fridge.

A note on the fridge with girly half-cursive writing and a heart drawn at the bottom.

 

_Peter,_

_Went out shopping today. Gonna grab groceries on the way home, so don’t complain about no food in the house yet. I swear I’m always buying groceries for you these days. I’ll be home by five. Start thinking about a movie for tonight, something that we’d both like this time, huh? And if you do decide to go out, let me know, okay? I worry._

 

Peter stares at the heart drawn under her words. His chest hurts. His chest hurts bad and somehow he just _knows_. That instinct, that self-preservation 'feeling' in pounding at the base of his skull and somehow Peter. Just. Knows.

Peter calls May one more time. Then he calls the police.

...

On Friday morning Peter decided not to go school. He decided this at four AM while staring at the living room ceiling and clutching his phone. His hands hurt from the tight fists they’ve been locked in for hours. He tried to sleep on the couch, so he’d hear it right away when May came home. He’d hear it anywhere in the apartment, but for some reason this felt better. After calling the police the night before, he was told that he should call back after it’s been 24 hours, but they’ll keep an eye out for a woman matching that description. Peter tells them she could’ve been in the accident, and then they tell him they’ll keep an eye out for any Jane Doe’s fitting the description.

Any Jane Does. They mean any dead woman who they haven’t attached a name to yet.

Peter leaves them a number to call and neglects to mention that he’s 15.

That night Happy called him once, and he let it ring. He’s a little worried because Happy never initiated contact before. Maybe it’s because of the incident with Vulture that he’s all the sudden so eager to talk to Peter.

Does Happy know something Peter doesn’t? Or is it a mission? Or is it the incident from earlier that Peter never replied about?

It’s four thirty AM on Friday when Peter’s phone buzzes again. He checks the I.D., and lets it ring a few times. He answers. A lady asks if this is Peter Parker and he replies in a very calm and very even voice that yes, this is Peter Parker.

It’s about Jane Doe, the lady says.

Peter was called down to Union Memorial Hospital Center to identify a body.

...

There was a woman laid out on a table with a white tarp on her and two skinny feet sticking out the end. Two men followed Peter in, one ahead of him and one with a steadying hand on his shoulder. These men are strangers, but he was glad they were here. These strangers were the only thing keeping Peter from being alone with a dead body.

The first man moved to the other side of the table, and gently pulled the tarp over her head, stopping just past her bare shoulders.

The first thing Peter noticed was how one side of this woman’s, _this corpse’s_ , head looked like it had been hit with a train. The second thing he noticed was how the other half looked like Aunt May.

“May?” He breathes out. It hangs then in the air but is never answered. The body doesn’t talk back.

The man who pulled back the tarp asks quietly “Is this her?”

He waits for her to respond, but the body doesn’t talk back.

He can’t answer. He can’t move. Peter’s heart is a drum and he can’t stop staring. The tears he’s fought off for so long are burning his eyes but they don’t drop.

“I need verbal confirmation, Mr. Parker,” he coaxes lightly. “I can show you some more identifying features if the face isn’t enough? Some birthmarks?”

The body doesn’t talk back. But, Peter knows the man isn’t talking to the body. He’s very clearly talking to him. The boy shakes his head. He can’t breath in enough to release a sob, so he doesn’t. Instead he stands there and wraps one fist in the tarp and one in May’s hidden hand. When he pulls the tarp too much the first man pulls it up to conserve his aunt's modesty. He tries to intertwine his fingers with May’s but hers are stiff and won’t bend.

He thinks of how she died, pinned under a building. “I’m s-sorry,” he says. The body doesn’t talk back.

The second man, the one who kept his hand on Peter’s shoulder, is now gently pulling Peter away. He untangles the boy’s hand from the tarp and pulls on his other wrist until he lets go of his Aunt. It’s the last time he’s ever gonna touch her. He just wants to hold on a little longer- but he gets it. He’s grabbing too hard.

“Is there anyone we can call for you, son?” And that sets the boy over the edge. He sucks in one hard earned breath and turns around to sob into this man's shirt. And the man lets him. His only comfort is a stranger, the last person he loved dead behind him, being obscured by a tarp once more.

His voice is to thick to articulate. “N-No.”

“It says your emergency contact is Ben Parker. Can we call him?”

Peter didn’t think he could cry any harder if he tried, but somehow he did. “No. N-no. He. He’s dead,” he got out. He leaned into the stranger as his legs threatened to give out. He wanted this man to hug him. To offer some vain attempt at reassurance but he didn’t do that, at least not like how Peter wanted it.

“We’re gonna take you to another room and let you sit for a moment. We will figure this out, okay? Everybody’s gonna help you.”

Nobody could help him. Nobody could bring back the dead. He sobs so hard the he knocks the wind out of himself and falls over. He lands on his butt and knocks his head against the table hard. It rocks. He rocks, too.

“I love you, May.”

The body doesn’t talk back.

...

He’s pulled to a little room similar to a hospital room, but without any of the machinery. There is a cot in the corner and a shelf with hooks that have lab coats and scrubs hanging from them. The room has no windows, but it, just like the morgue, is in the basement. He’s just a couple rooms away from his Aunt.

Sometimes, if Peter tries really hard and draws it all in, he can hear the heartbeat of someone in the next apartment. Now he can’t hear anyone’s heartbeat but his own and it is thundering, threatening and beating against his chest violently. He can’t hear May’s. Her’s always sounds a little different because she has a pacemaker, he can always pick it out from everything else if he tries.

Because she _had_ a pacemaker, he corrects himself. She doesn’t _have_ anything now.

“You sure there ain’t no one we can call for you right now?”

“Please, John, he’s in shock. Let it go.”

“How old is he?”

“Fifteen.”

“Jesus. Well, our condolences, son. If you think of anybody, let us know and we’ll get them down here for you. Is there anything you need?”

Peter can’t answer. People need air to talk and Peter isn’t getting enough of that to even cry right at the moment so he shakes his head. The man fishes around in his pocket and pulls out a cracked cellphone in a plastic bag. “This was her’s. Gotta pass code we couldn’t crack. Won’t charge anymore either. You could probably fix it if you feel the need.”

He takes it and pockets it.

And then Peter sits down on the cot and shakes. He wishes he brought his earbuds. He wishes he could hear nothing right now, but he’d settle for only one thing, something other than his own frantic heartbeat. It consumes him. That, along with a pressure behind his eyes and a terrible terrible feeling that won’t ease. This isn’t like when Ben died. He was in May’s arms that night.

“Breath, son.”

But he can’t. Peter can’t swallow and he wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like.

“In and out, real slow.”

But nothing is moving slow, especially not Peter. Aunt May is dead. Dead dead dead-

“Hey, easy now. We’re gonna help you out.”  He feels himself being pushed back onto the mat and he almost lashes out. Almost pounces. He did kick a little bit, but it’s feeble and easy. One of the men took his shoes off while one appeared at his side setting a glass of water and a napkin with pills down beside him.

And the boy took the pills and drowns the water but something inside him won’t work right, because half the water gets down but the other half won't go down his throat. He gags and it all comes back up. Into a trash can. Peter wonders when the hell that trash can got here. Was it always there?

“Easy, boy. How ‘bout you take a nap?”

He can’t nap. Instead he shuts his eyes as tight as they’ll go and sobs for as much as he’s worth. People are in and out for the next hour. They don’t speak to him. The boy cries hard and long and eventually passes out after looking through his phone and finding no one it would make sense to call.

...

His phone buzzes.

 

 **Chair Guy:** **U missing the whole day? Thats alot**

**Chair Guy: Everything is cool, rght?**

**Chair Guy: Peter?**

 

It’s roughly ten o’clock when Peter wakes up to Ned texting him. His eyes take a minute to adjust to the darkness. At some point when he was asleep, someone gave him a blanket with a pillow and shut the lights off. Other than the blinding light from his phone and a sliver coming in from under the door, it’s black.

His fingers shake hard as he tries to type out a response and he ends up relying on autocorrect when he sends, **Not coming. Never comin g. Cant.**

Ned replies immediately. **WTF Peter?**

 

**Peter: I dunt know wht todo**

 

**Chair Guy: Whats going on**

**Chair Guy: ? Fucking answer. Enough of this cryptic shit**

**Chair Guy: Im worried**

 

Then Ned calls him. He lets it buzz while covering his eyes and hears with his newly found pillow. But it never stops buzzing. He gives himself two options; chuck it against the wall or answer it.

For some dumb reason Peter answers it. Ned’s voice is prompt in his ear but it takes a few moments to get what he’s saying. _“I don’t like it when you don’t inform me, Peter. It feels like you never tell me anything.”_

Peter tries his voice. “Ned.”

_“Yeah, I got five more minutes before this class ends and there’s no way I’m missing English unless it’s for a good reason. Why aren’t you here? Are you hurt?”_

“Ned, I...”

 _“...You don’t sound good. Don’t tell me you’re home because you just got sick or something. I... feel like you could’ve told me earlier if that was the case.”_ Whether he is sympathetic or cross, Peter couldn’t tell.

“Ned, I. I-” he chokes on a sob. He’s sobbing again. “Ned I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

_“Omygod Peter what’s wrong.”_

“She, uh, the accident. I was listening to music. I was,” he hiccups. Why wouldn’t his throat just make the words he wants? “She got stuck, like I did. Sh, she probably suffocated. M-maybe her chest gave in. Could’a been crushed, or a heart attack.  M-aybe b-broke her neck. Or, her head was hurt bad. Maybe that.” He wasn’t making enough sense for someone to follow but he only half wanted Ned to know what’s going on. He can’t will himself to talk reasonably anyway.

_“Peter...”_

“I’m scared.”

And then Peter hung up.  

Ned called several more times, but now Peter was coherent enough to remember that phones can be silenced. So he did just that. When someone came in, some nurse, he pretended to be asleep. She went about her business silently and left him a glass of water, a couple more pills and some granola bars from a vending machine. She left after pulling the blanket over his shoulders.

Not half an hour later, Peter watches his phone light up the dark again. This time, he can see that it’s Happy calling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Happy arrive but that doesn't mean things get better.
> 
> Peter gets angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This stuff is even starting to bum me out.  
> Also, after watching some Iron Man I noticed that Tony is actually an asshole.

After blocking Ned’s number, Peter only answers Happy after the man calls several more times. Maybe it's in self preservation that Peter didn't block Happy's number, too. He lets Happy talk a bit before even puts the phone to his ear.

And he’ll admit, hearing someone he knows is reassuring. But, Peter realizes while Happy speaks, he doesn’t want to talk to this man. Happy is the head of security, not his babysitter and this problem has nothing to do with Spider-man so why the _fuck_ is Happy calling-

No. This has everything to do with Spider-man. Aunt May might not be dead if Spider-man payed more attention to what went off in his own city.

 _“Are you hearing me, kid?”_ Happy’s voice is an anchor to reality, one the boy is begrudgingly willing to cling to. The voice is rough. It’s verging on exasperation, suggesting he’s been speaking into the phone for quite a while while Peter day-dreamed.

“I’m here.”

He can feel Happy recoil from the other end. His own voice must sound worse than he thought.

_“Jesus, kid. What’s going on?”_

“...Happy.”

 _“I’m here. Gotta call from your friend, he’s real concerned...”_ There is a pause, and he realizes only once Happy starts speaking again that he was waiting for Peter to explain himself. _“I am too, ya haven't been returning my calls. You two better not be pulling my leg-”_

Peter’s voice is raw, so raw it bleeds. “Happy, May’s hurt.” Peter feels a huge weight fall _onto_ his shoulders. They sag, he can’t sit up straight. He keeps his eyes locked on the dark wall across from him, willing them to stay dry. He can’t say it. He can’t say that she’s dead or else he’ll fall apart again. It’s hard to hold off, as is.

He hears rustling on the the end. _“May? The aunt?”_ Happy prompts, not unkindly, but not understanding either.

“Yeah, _the aunt_ ,” speaks the boy bitterly.

_“I didn’t mean it like that. How bad, kiddo?”_

Peter feels something shift, like the room was turned on his side and he’s slowly falling down. “She’s not really hurt.”

“..."

“I... I don’t. I’m not sure this is real.” It can’t be. This is all a joke.

 _“Peter. Tell me whats going on. I,_ we, _can help.”_

“She fucking died.” This is a terrible joke.

_“Tell me where you are.”_

“I-I don’t want to, to be _alone_.”

Happy sounds like a robot. _“We’re gonna help you take care of this. Tell us where you are. I can get Tony there by 12:30.”_

“U-Union.”

_“Where?”_

“Union Memorial. The hospital.”

Happy keeps on talking after that but Peter lets the phone drop. He doesn’t have it in him for anymore than that. Fresh tears prick at his eyes. Ned called Happy. Ned must be really, really worried. Probably mad, too. But for the first time perhaps ever, Peter Parker doesn’t care how Ned feels. His field of concern just shrunk and Peter doesn’t think he cares about anyone alive quite right now.

...

It’s a little after 1:20. By now, Peter has company. A nice lady named Mrs. Franklen is sitting across from him in a folding chair discussing options with him. She speaks quietly and slowly, guiding him through whats going to happen. They can read into granting temporary guardianship for Stark, (who Peter swears to this lady is coming, Tony Stark is fucking coming, okay) but the long term needs to be considered, too.

Up until now Peter just thought of himself living in the apartment alone, without May, without Ben, without anybody. It’s unrealistic, but not until this lady brought up foster care did Peter get it. He’s not going to live in the apartment. He’s not going to live alone. He’s 15.

“No.” He’s _15_. Way too old for foster care. Peter decides right there he isn’t going to do that. He just isn't going to do that- tried it once, never again.

“No what, Peter?” She’s making eye contact. Her eyes are a familiar brown.

He wills his voice to be strong for the first time today, strong and authoritative. “Foster care. I don’t want to do that.”

This lady leans forward and furrows her brows. She’s biting her lip, forcing an understanding smile. Both of them know there is nothing to smile about but she’s trying anyway and it bugs him. She bugs him. Peter could recognize a look like that in his sleep. He’s gotten it many times before, when he’d talk about his parents, when Ben died. This lady is pitying him. “Oh, Sweetie. We’re gonna figure something out, we’re gonna help-”

By now Peter’s nerves have been ground down too far. _“Why does everybody keep saying that!?”_ He feels his fists tangle in the blanket under him and he can feel it starting to stretch and tear but they won’t loosen. His throat won’t either. He’s wound like a clock that keeps getting faster.

Mrs. Franklen is definitely surprised by his outburst if her new posture is anything to go by, but that look doesn’t leave her face. Carefully, like she’s walking on eggshells, she prompts “Saying what, honey?”

He swallows and finds a spot on the far wall to focus on. He doesn’t like looking in her eyes. “That they are going to help.”

She nods like she expected that answer, like she expected to see him angry and seething like he is. “Want to take a break? I can come back in a few hours.”

“Mr. Stark is coming soon,” he reminds her. But they should be here by now.

“Hmm.” She nods.

“ _But they are_. Happy called me. _They’re coming.”_

While the lady clearly doesn’t know who Happy is, or why he and Tony Stark would be coming, she senses that the boy is inches from another breakdown. This one’s an angry breakdown. “Okay. We can wait for them.”

And they do. Peter lays back down on the cot in an effort to show this lady that he’s done talking. He checks his phone and stares at the wall. A few seconds later he feels Mrs. Franklin shift and get up from the chair. Instead of leaving she pulls the chair next to him and rubs a hand over his back. When he pulls himself into a ball, she snakes a hand through his hair.

He scrunches his eyes closed and breathes. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too, sweetheart.” He leans into the touch. He just wants May to touch him like this. To hug him. To sit with him and let him lay his head in her lap. But this isn’t Aunt May. He’s cheating her by getting comfort from a stranger like this, her body’s hardly even cold and he’s already moving on.

This lady looks a little like Aunt May, the boy realizes. She’s got brown hair and glasses. She’s the same shape chin, and she talks in the same quiet voice that May does when Peter’s upset. With his eyes closed, he can try and think that this woman _is_ May. That it’s all been a long cruel dream.

But it doesn’t work.

The woman brushes his hair out of his face and Peter feels himself gag. He’s never hated anyone as much as he hates this woman in this moment. She’s not May. He reels away from her so suddenly he gets whiplash and kicks her chair over. They both squawk as she falls.

The room suddenly feels very very small and Peter would give anything to be very far away from this woman. Looking at her, he sees that she isn’t even remotely similar to Aunt May. She’s _blond,_ he realizes.

“I-I’m sorry.” He’s crying again.

Mrs. Franklen picks herself off the floor and only half hides a grimace. She isn’t looking Peter in the eyes anymore. “It’s... okay. I know it’s hard for you. I’ll be outside for a little bit, okay?”

She’s gone. The little room doesn’t feel any bigger without her.

...

Peter feels like his hoodie is constricting him. He pulls it violently off his shoulders and wastes no time in throwing it at the wall. Then throws the blanket, too. He feels cramped and trapped- but he’s not. There is water rushing over his face- but it’s slow moving tears. He wants his headphones. He wants to block everything out.

A cellphone buzzes. It’s an unknown number.

**Were close. Hang in there.**

...

They were close. Minutes later, Peter hears that lady (Mrs. Franklen, he should remember her name after ruining her day) and Mr. Stark talking from down the hall. The words are lost on him, but he can recognize that voice. It’s sharp. They stop outside the door, and make an effort to speak real quiet. They ought to know there is no way to speak quietly enough because Peter could hear them as soon as the elevator opened. Sometimes, times like this, he can hear _everything._

But he couldn’t focus on the words they said because he’s too busy hearing _everything._

“Mr. Stark? H-Happy?”

They pause. Peter sits up on the cot.

The door opens halfway and he sees Mr. Stark with _that look_ , the pity look. Mr. Stark doesn’t step inside, he keeps a hand on the doorknob. If the boy didn’t know better, he’d say the man was about to bolt.

“Peter," he starts, but has trouble going on. Peter get’s it. What is there to say? “...We’re gonna leave soon. I got some paperwork to do first.”

“You’re late.”

Tony had little to say about that and the door doesn’t open or close anymore. They stare at each other. Peter must look like shit because the man doesn’t hold his gaze for long. He looks over his shoulder and gestures. “Happy, keep the kid company.”

When Happy comes in the room feels very small all over again. Mr. Stark and Mrs. Franklen leave the door open while they go work on that “paperwork” and Happy comes a lot closer than Peter was expecting him too. He sits himself down on the cot and says nothing about the hoodie and blanket by the far wall.

“Are they really, uh, working on paperwork?”

“Yeah,” Happy breathes.

“O-Okay... I... I’m glad you guys came.”

He sighs, “You should’ve called me.”

“This seems a little out of Happy Hogan and Iron Man’s job description, that’s all.”

Then, abruptly and in one jerk, Happy throws an arm around the boy’s shoulder and pulls him into his chest. “I’m sorry, Peter.” When Peter looks up, he notices that Happy’s expression is blank. He’s looking at the same wall Peter has spent so much time staring at.

Peter lets himself lean into Happy and he feels all the breath leave his body. When he draws air back in, he’s crying again. His efforts to stop the tears are met with wet, raspy gasps.

“Let it out. No one’s watching.”

And so Peter does.

...

Paperwork must take a long time, because Peter is ready to fall asleep again by the time Tony get’s back. Happy never said anymore, and Peter couldn’t find anything to say. They are leaving now, Tony says. Get your things, Tony says while retrieving the hoodie on the floor.

Peter makes sure both his aunt’s broken phone and his own are in his pocket before grabbing his shoes. His fingers are stiff and his hands hurt from being held in fists for so long. They are clumsy, he has trouble even putting his shoes on. He’s painfully aware that both men are staring at him as his shaking hands try and tie his damn shoes.

After a few more seconds he deems them being on his feet enough and shoves the laces inside before they grow impatient. Because there is no way he’s having someone else tie his shoes for him.

“You’re fine, Kid.” Happy says like he’s reading Peter’s mind.

And then Tony is offering him an hand, he takes it and rises from the cot he’s been on for hours

Then they leave.

...

Tony might’ve been a little hurt when Peter asked him to ride in the passenger seat instead of in the back with him, but Peter really didn’t want to sit next to Tony. If he’s gonna sit in the back of this little sedan than he’s at least gonna sit alone. It’s small inside. He’s been in this car before, but it must’ve since shrunk because it feels tight.

Peter opened the back windows even though it’s raining and lays across both seats, and then Tony looks a lot less hurt about sitting in the front.

“Are... Are you okay back there, Peter?” He’s got that look.

“Yeah. It’s, a, just a little tight back here, ya know?”

Tony nods and Happy shrugs, but no, they don’t actually know. Peter has felt like he’s been crushed by a several tons of cement since he saw the news last night and they will never feel that. They don’t know.

Aunt May would probably know, he thinks to himself. Not only did he tell her about his fit under a building after several nights of nightmares, but now she was under one herself. Well, she would know if she wasn’t dead.

He wonders how long she was buried before she died. He wonders what it was that killed her first, the weight or the suffocation. Who knows, maybe it fell on her just right and she died immediately.

“I forgot to ask,” Peter says aloud.

Tony turns to him. “Ask what?"

“How she died.”

“A building fell on her.” Tony says bluntly. “I was under the impression you knew that bit.”

Happy recoils in his seat. “What the hell, Tony!?”

“No shit, but. How, really. Did she suffocate? Was she crushed to death? Her head looked fucked up, so it coulda been head trauma, yeah?”

Both of the men are staring at him. Happy’s eyes try to meet his in the rear view mirror.

With no one stopping him, Peter goes on. “The fall might’ve broken her neck, or something. Or, she also had a bad heart. It’s never been great. She could’ve had, like, heart complications. Heart attack, stroke.”

“Peter,” Tony starts but it’s clear he doesn’t know where to go from there.

But the boy doesn’t stop. His thoughts are bubbling and spilling out. It scares himself with how even his voice stays. “It was probably aw-awful. Painful. May probably screamed and no one could hear or help- and then she suffered a heart attack and died while, while trapped and _alone_.”

_“Peter.”_

“I, I just wanna know.” Peter finished lamely.

There is a thick, tangible silence that spreads through the car. There is a moment where the three of them sit in uncomfortable unease as they wait for someone to break it. Happy volunteers. “Jesus,” he says.

“Yeah kid, _what the fuck_?”

“What do you mean, ‘what the fuck?’ What the fuck do you think!?”

Tony doesn’t raise his voice as loud as Peter’s was but it is no longer so well composed. “Okay, first, all these f-bombs coming out of you are new, lay of ‘em, you’re 15. I don’t-”

“I’m aloud to say fuck! After everything that’s happening, that’s what you chose to be worried about!? My _‘unusually attractive aunt’_ kicked it. May, ‘ _aunt hottie_ -’”

 _“Peter,”_ Tony warned. He didn’t find it funny, but Peter never found it funny and he wanted Mr. Stark to know that. “Peter, _stop_ -”

“‘ _Hey May, what’re you doing, what’re you wearing? Something skimpy, I hope_.’” Peter quoted.

“The both of you, cool it,” Happy warned. “I’m stopping the damn car.”

“Keep driving, Happy, lets just get the kid home.” Tony’s voice returned to it’s usual volume.

It’s back. The tangible silence, thick and awkward and dense.

Tony breaks it this time, and for a split second Peter think’s it’s just to get the last word in. “They told me,” he pauses, and Peter swears it’s just for dramatic effect. “That she suffocated. She took a hit to the head, like you pointed out. They said it’s likely that she wasn’t conscious for any of it.”

Happy breathes heavy through his nose like either he really didn’t want to hear that, or he really didn’t want Tony to say that.

“Oh,” Peter says, defeated. Suddenly he’s not sure if he wanted to know, after all. His own breath feels tight and hard to come by.

The tension wasn’t gone, though. He was still surrounded by landmines and he had a feeling that him and Tony weren’t done stepping on them.

“And,” Tony started, speaking like it was an afterthought. “I’m sorry for any inappropriate remarks regarding your aunt.”

“...Okay.” Peter silently wondered if every apology from Mr. Stark was going to be as painful as that. He looks to the man waiting for something more, but it’s clear that he has no more to say. Peter stares anyway. “I... Okay I guess.”

“What, that not enough? You’re not happy?” Tony snaps rather suddenly, giving him an exasperated look. “You want more to fuel the morbid death talk?”

 _“Tony.”_ Happy says through clenched teeth. He’s ignored.

“ _No_ . I’m not _happy_ . The fuck is wrong with you? What crawled up your ass today? I never know but it’s always something, huh. Did I pick a, a bad d-day for my aunt to die? That why you took seven years getting here?” His face is wet again. His throat is hot and constricting. “How f-fucking incon-incons, _inconsiderate_ of us. We oughta re-reschedule. Pick a time better for the _great Tony Stark_.” And he’s crying in the backseat.

The man stops his assault after that, all the fight gone now.  He suffers an aggressive look from Happy and gross half-sobs coming from the back seat. Only now does Happy stop the car. Drawing his eyes up from his shoes, Peter realizes they are at his apartment.

...

Tony must feel obligated or something because he follows Peter up to get his things. Peter told him he didn’t need to, but Mr. Stark gave him a variation of the pity look, said he was sorry, and followed Peter up anyways. The directions are to only pack for a couple days. They can come back for more later once they have a better idea of what’s going on, Tony said.

As soon as Peter opens the front door a new wave hits and his eyes burn with more tears. Instead of grabbing anything, he sits at the kitchen table and cries into his hands as Tony goes and packs for him. Peter listens to the man rummaging throughout the apartment like an elephant.

It’s several minutes before Tony comes back and sets two backpacks on the table. “I, uh, grabbed everything that seemed useful.”

“Okay.” Peter’s voice is cracked. He watches as Tony gazes about the apartment, taking it in like it’s the first time he’s ever been inside. Or, Peter thinks, like it’s the last. He watches while Tony finds the note still on the fridge and gives it a once over, a twice over, and then turns back to him.

“You wanna minute here?”

Peter nods.

“You want me to go?”

Instead of answering the boy hesitates. He does want a moment to himself, but being alone in this apartment is his worse fear. Sensing something like this, Mr. Stark pulls out a chair and sits down at the table with him.

“I understand that... Maybe we have some things we should’ve discussed earlier. Like the hot aunt thing.” Peter nods but can’t bring himself to look at Mr. Stark. “And, well. Maybe I’m the one who acted 15. You’re right. It is a bad day for this to happen. For me.”

The apartment is eerily silent. Peter wishes he turned on more lights when they came in.

“But, it did. And, it’s much worse for you. This, isn’t about Tony Stark, I know. Bad day or not, it happened, no excuse. And, it’s not your fault. I’m not mad... at Peter or May Parker.” Tony stops again but Peter is unwilling to contribute anything to this conversation. He doesn’t like listening to Tony stutter through a half-apology. He certainly doesn’t like how the man’s voice drops as he continues. Tony’s voice is way too soft to be Tony’s voice. “Just, know that I’m your corner, alright?”

And with that Tony grabs the backpacks and leaves quietly.

Peter takes exactly four minutes before he himself is out the door. He takes a moment in every room, makes sure he’s got his earbuds, and takes one final sweep on the way out. Peter makes an effort not to look at any of the family pictures. He makes an effort not to look at May’s abandoned shoes by the door or the dishes in the sink that he never got around to. Instead, he reads the note on the fridge one last time. The boy looked at the heart drawn at the bottom with sore eyes.

Then he leaves. 

Peter locks the door behind him and the weight on his shoulders shifts. It’s not gone, not heavier or lighter. Just different.

Mr. Stark was waiting for him outside the door. He was on the phone, and the tone of voice didn’t suggest a business call. Then he hung up. With a nod, the two start walking. They don’t speak. They don’t meet each other’s eyes. Instead, Tony slings an arm over him inside the elevator and they stand close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm real surprised by the feedback I've gotten. It makes me real pleased to see so many people liking what I make. Please keep commenting. They really make my day. 
> 
> Also low key looking for a beta reader because I'm not so good with grammar and spelling. Operating on google docs. only.


	3. Chapter 3

On the car ride out, they didn’t let him leave the windows open. And while it sure made the car feel tighter, it was understandable. The rain was too heavy. It was thick and pounding but it was consistent. Peter made an effort to focus on the rain and the rain only during the rest of the ride. It was loud and everywhere and gave him a similar result to blasting music in his hears. He stretched out across the seats and focused on the rain.

Peter had just closed his eyes, not even to sleep, just to close them, when Tony reached back and shook his shoulder. His eyes snapped open.

“We’re here.”

And here isn’t where Peter expects it to be. He looks out the window and he’s not looking at the compound upstate, he’s looking at a big building with a lot of windows. He’s looking at every building in New York. Big lettering towards the top read “Baymont Suites.”

A hotel.

Peter makes no effort to get out of the car. “Why... Why are we here?” Peter croaks.

“Right now, while things are still being... sorted, Social Services wants you in the city.”

“Okay, but why _here_?”

“Didn’t know you were a hotel-snob, Mr. Parker. Well, the idea is to stay somewhere a little more discreet that my usual. This is gonna be hell if the press finds out. I hope the “Baymont” will suffice, yes?”

The boy draws a in a sharp breath. He shoots a glare at Tony and his fists tighten. If Tony is trying to goad him for another argument then- but when he looks at the man he noticed no such hints in his expression. The man is joking. He’s trying to joke.

There is nothing to joke about.

“Okay, sure, but why here? Why not stark tower-”

“Is completely empty. Besides, it’s already under new ownership.”

“Oh.” Peter . “Why not my apartment?”

Tony Blinks at him. Happy raises an eyebrow at the both of them. “I, just didn’t think it would be a great idea... Was I wrong?” And while his words sound sarcastic, when Peter searches Tony’s face, he seems genuine. “If you want, we can re-think this and head back...”

He takes a moment to decide. He thinks of the note on the fridge, and shakes his head.

“The Baymont it is.”

...

They are standing in the hall after a rather uncomfortable ride up and Peter has to admit it’s nicer inside than he thought it would be. He and May wouldn’t even dream of a hotel like this, and if this is Tony being discreet than he really wonder what kind of hotels Tony usually frequents.

They stop on the third floor in front of rooms 55 and 56. Tony hands him a Keycard.

“There are only two rooms.”

“Yeah.”

“There are three of us.”

Happy seems to be struggling with the luggage but Peter doesn’t have it in his heart to help him. Instead, he watches as Happy wipes his brow and says, “Don’t take it personally, Parker, but we figured maybe... Maybe you’d want some company.”

“Oh.”

Tony’s hand is on his shoulder. “It’s not like we’re sharing a bed.”

“Alright.” He brushes the hand off and drags his backpacks up to the door. He fumbles with the keycard, because maybe he never really spent much time in hotels, okay, but he figures it out and goes in before either of the men. He’s only a little surprised when Tony doesn’t follow behind him. Only a little, as he hears Tony move into the next room with Happy.

He knows they are talking about him. He doesn’t want to know what they are talking about.

His brain is on autopilot as he takes in the main room. Its big, and dark, seeing as he doesn’t touch the light switch, but that’s good. There is a queen sized bed, a nightstand and a desk with a TV on top and a mini fridge under it. There’s an open door at the far wall, and Peter can just see another bed and some windows in the next room.

Peter has very little interest in anything but the closest bed.

Peter pulls his headphones out of his pocket, sticks them in, and tries his very best to disappear under the covers, wet shoes, hoodie and all. He caves in on himself, curling into a ball and tries to make himself as small as possible.

...

“I see you already chose a bed.”

Peter opens his eyes and peals his earphones out of his ears to see Tony coming in, dragging his own luggage. He came out of a door Peter didn’t even notice before, a door separating Happy’s suite from theirs.

Peter closes his eyes again. Whatever the man wants to say can wait.

Tony sighs. “Come on, kid at least take your shoes off.”

So Peter kicks his shoes off and shoves them to the floor, hoping that that would suffice and he could go back to pretending that nothing really exists. It doesn’t work. Just a moment later Peter feels the bed dip, and he pries his eyes open to see Tony sitting on the edge of the bed looking very uncomfortable. And tired. And _old_ . While Peter doesn’t really think of Mr. Stark as _old_ , looking up at him now he can see shadows under his eyes and thick lines on his face that never seemed so thick before.

The boy wonders if he’s why Tony aged five years in one day.

“Peter, kid, maybe we ought to talk about this. Just a little bit.”

Peter blinks at him. If Peter felt like talking, he’d mention how his tongue was too heavy to speak right, or how his throat was so tight that he couldn’t talk without wheezing. But, for those reasons, Peter doesn't want to talk and so he doesn’t mention those things. Instead he gives an exaggerated roll of his shoulders.

“Some things are going to happen in the next few days and I feel like if we talk about them... they won’t be so shocking when they happen. Let’s keep you in the know, yeah?”

This is the first time Tony Stark has ever tried to keep Peter Parker “in the know.”

He feels a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t realize the man was sitting close enough for that. “Peter, kid, come on. Throw me a bone here, I’m trying.”

That ever persistent weight that rests on Peter’s shoulders moves until it’s sitting on his chest. His head hurts. His heart hurts. His eyes hurt, and they hurt even more when he catches the way Tony’s shoulders sag too. Whatever this weight is, they are both feeling it. “Okay... What’s going to happen.”

“The funeral is on Monday. I’m gonna get you a tailored suit so don’t worry about that.”

Peter wasn’t worrying about that.

“Tuesday we got a meeting with social services. I’m bringing a couple lawyers, whichever ones Pepper chooses really, that can work over granting me guardianship. We can do that, okay? We can do what you need, but. Well. Its, uh. Well.”

Peter knows what coming. He knows what’s coming and it makes him feel eight years younger and alone.

“I’m not really the, the _guardian type_.” Mr. Stark isn’t looking at him. He’s picked a freckle on his hand to stare at as he continues. “If our earlier spar was anything to go by, I’m not very adept with this... sensitive talk. I, I get it. What you’re going through. You’ve been dealt a shit hand, Mr. Parker. And maybe someone else would better-”

Peter feels bright anger bubbling up his throat and before he can calm it, it speaks. “Mr. Stark, I _swear to god,_ if you put me in foster care I’m gonna-”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say, Peter.”

“...Oh.”

“I’m gonna be a shit dad. I come from a shit dad myself, who came from a shit dad who probably came from more shit. But I’m trying to help. I’m trying to give you a choice, here.”

“Oh.” He can’t seem to say anything else.

Mr. Stark’s hand is heavy on his shoulder, and his voice is too soft. He doesn't sound like himself. Sitting next to him in the dark with bags under his eyes and stress lining his face, he doesn’t look like himself either. “I’m not throwing you to the dogs. But maybe we oughta talk about what you want, instead of what I assume you want.”

Oh.

_What you want._

And then it hits Peter like a wall.

He doesn’t _want_ to live with Tony Stark. He doesn’t want to be bound by him by any sort of legal documentation. He doesn't even want to look at him right now. While even just a week ago, thinking about living with Tony would’ve been a dream of some sort, now it makes him sick. The guy was never interested in anything but Spider-Man before this. Laying curled up in a hotel bed hugging his knees, Peter can’t help but think how this has nothing to do with Spider-man. While in some part of his head, he’s glad that Happy and Mr. Stark care about Peter Parker, too, the greater part of his wonder’s why they are here.

_They’re here because there’s no one else who can be._

Today, the only thing he wants is his aunt.

“I want to go home.” His voice cracks. It just won’t work right. Every word is like cracked glass.

“...I know.” The voice is gentle, or as gentle as Tony Stark can get, but it’s not enough.

“I want May and Ben.”

“I know.”

“It’s.... It’s just. Not. Fair.” Every word is harder than the last. His whole head feels heavy and he just gives up.

And then the boy completely shuts down. He pulls covers over his head, shoves his earbuds back in his ears and closes his eyes as tight as they’ll go. He feels Tony rub a hand over his back and it’s probably meant to be calming, but it’s not. It’s awkward. It’s clear by the way Tony says nothing and does nothing that he’s never comforted another person but himself.

He shoves the hand away.

The man gives up quickly, and Peter feels the dip in the bed disappear as Tony moves to the next room.

...

It’s one AM Saturday morning and Peter can’t sleep. He slept a lot the previous day. In fact, he took every moment that he could to be senseless and snoring, but now it’s early and he can’t sleep. He _wants_ to sleep.

As quietly as he can, Peter swings his legs over the side of the bed and gets up. As quietly as he can, he roots around his backpacks until he finds his wallet. Then, as quietly as he can, he grabs his keycard from the side table and makes his way out the door.

The boy waits outside in the hallway for a minute, just to see if Happy or Tony are about to follow him out. They don’t. No one follows Peter.

He takes the stairs instead of the elevator, and when he finds himself walking out of the front lobby and into the night, he stops himself. It’s colder than he’d thought it would be. The hoodie he’s been wearing for two days straight now doesn’t feel so thick as the winds cuts through it.

But, the boy reasons, at least it’s not raining anymore.

He keeps moving. It’s a little after one AM and he’s a fifteen year old boy walking New York alone at night, but any self preservation he had is gone. He figures, it’s a nice part of the city. And, if anything were to really go wrong, he could count on that primal warning to go off in his head.

It never goes off. No danger, as far as the boy is concerned.

Peter picks a direction to walk and just walks. While doing this, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials a number he knows by heart. Neds.

It rings. The wind blows. A street light flickers. It rings once more.

Despite the hour, Ned answers because of course he would. Ned probably hasn’t left his phone out of reach since this morning when they first talked. Ned is a really good friend, Peter is reminded as he hears his voice. He’s a damn good friend. _“Oh My God Peter I’ve been calling you, like, all day.”_

His feet keep moving. “Yeah, I. Uh. Blocked your phone for a bit. Didn’t see any texts.”

 _“Peter, why? What the hell is going on? You’ve gotten me so worried...”_ He can still hear the sleep in Ned’s voice. _“Whats, whats going on...?”_

Ned trails off, waiting for Peter to interject and explain himself. But it’s not that easy. “May...” He grinds out.

 _“Peter...”_ Ned already knows what happened. He’s a smart guy, he can probably read between the lines. But, He’s Peter’s best friend, and he should hear what’s happening from Peter himself.

“She, uh. That accident, Ned. The one on 30th. May was there.”

He hears Ned swallow. _“Is she okay.”_ It doesn’t sound like a question.

“No. She died.” And Peter waits for a second to fall apart. Ned pauses too, waiting for him to do the same but he doesn’t. His eyes don’t even water. For a moment, Peter feels not at peace, but engulfed by it.

Peter doesn’t feel, he realizes.

He doesn’t feel anything at all right now. He thinks of the empty apartment, and of the note on the fridge. He thinks of his hand clamped around Aunt May’s cold fingers, and of the way her head was bashed. Then he thinks of dancing with May the day before homecoming. He thinks of falling asleep on the couch with her every night for a week after Ben died. He thinks of May holding him tight all those years ago after he realized his parents weren’t coming back, and how she held him just as tight whenever they hugged since

He thinks of May but somehow he keeps his calm. There are no tears. No vises around his chest. No sinking gut, no nausea, no _nothing_.

Well, the weight sitting upon his shoulders is still there, but that has been so constant it doesn’t even register anymore.

 _“Oh, god...”_ Ned’s voice roots him back to reality. _“Peter, are, are you okay? Whats happening?”_

Peter takes a moment. Instead of feeling sorrow, he just feels cold. “No, I’m not.” He starts walking again.

_“Where are you?”_

“The rich part of Manhattan.”

_“What? No. Are you out as Spider-man right now?!”_

Peter spots a convenience store across the street and makes a bee-line for it. “No, I’m just out. I’m uh. Staying with Mr. Stark for a bit. In a hotel. I don’t really know what’s happening.”

_“Holy shit.”_

“Yeah, holy shit.” Peter agrees.

And Ned says the only reassuring thing he can. _“I love you, Peter.”_ Man, Ned really is a really good friend.

“I love you too, Ned, I’m gonna go.” He hears a sharp protest from the other side, but when he hangs up Ned doesn’t immediately call him back. Peter pockets his phone and checks around him before entering the convenience store.

It’s small and crowded. The cashier at the register is the only other person in the store. The  man hardly notices when Peter comes in, and Peter has to admit this is eerily similar to a time about a year ago when he was in a convenience store just like this, with a man at the register, and another with a gun.

But there is no gunman. No killer Peter didn’t stop.

The store feels particularly crowded as Peter navigates the aisles. He takes a packet of gummy worms and a bottle the cheapest sleeping aid they stocked. It’s not the one he had at home, but he supposes any would do.

He started using sleeping aids after the vulture incident. It was May’s idea, actually.

He purchases his candy and the bottle and leaves without exchanging any words.

When he leaves and walks back, he finds no abandoned car. Hears no gunshots. Finds no dead uncle.

The night is silent, and Peter doesn’t feel.

...

He enters the hotel room as gracefully as he can. For a minute, he thought no one was up, but then he heard Tony talking in the other room. He sees light sneaking in from under his door. Peter waits, expecting Tony to come out any minute and start interrogating him about where he went.

But Tony never realized he was gone. He’s on the phone, the boy realizes once he notices no one is talking back.

Whatever the two AM phone call is about, Peter couldn’t find it in him to care. He hears Mr. Stark's voice raise once, then twice, and then to nothing. He resumes a few seconds later, quiet again.

Peter ignores the potential drama in the next room. Instead, he tear open his bag of gummy worms, eats a huge handful in two bites, and takes out the sleeping aid. He reads the back with the light of his phone. Then, carefully, like the bottle will yell at him, he pours himself the suggested serving. He downs it.

But Peter really wants to sleep.

And, he reasons with himself, his metabolism is faster than what the bottle anticipates. So, he pours himself three more servings worth and is about to swallow when that urgent, primal feeling erupted from the back of his skull. His sixth sense. His instinct. It hurt, hurt much worse than Peter ever expected it to. It hurt like the base of his skull got frostbite and is being prodded with needles, but once Peter swallows the medicine it dulls rapidly.

Then he hides the bottle and the candy in his backpack and crawls back into bed.

...

“Jesus Christ Kid, you sleep like the dead.”

Peter is being woken up by Tony shaking him awake. The lights are on. The sun pours through the window from the other room where the door is open.

Peter blinks.

“Okay, maybe that's a bad analogy right now. But you should get up and eat something. It’s almost noon.”

“I...” His voice is still waking up. “I slept until noon?” Peter Parker has never slept until noon. He has an alarm set for nine o’clock every weekend and seven for weekdays.

“Yeah, now get up Sleeping Beauty.” Tony sounds like himself again. Sarcastic, sharp, maybe sharper than normal even. His voice rubs Peter the wrong way and for a moment, he considers talking just as sharp back.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he sits up in bed and stares blankly at Tony and at the wall until Tony pulls him out of bed, hands him clothes and pushes him towards the bathroom they share.

“Clean up, and I’ll take you out to breakfast.”

“I don’t want to go to breakfast.” He doesn't want to do anything.

“Okay, cleanup, and I _won’t_ take you to breakfast.”

Instead of reacting to the harsh tone and starting another fight he decides to make it easier for the both of them. Without further prompting, Peter shuts himself in the bathroom. He looks at the waiting shower and is overcome with unease. He doesn’t really like water much. Not water streaming over his face in a tiny shower while he shakes and pretends breathing is easy.

But, he showers and it’s fine. No anxiety rises from inside him, no panic seeps from the walls and ceiling and into his skin. Nothing.

...

When he gets out, Tony stays true to his word and doesn’t take him to breakfast and they order room service. The room service has no taste. Peter eats it simply to avoid another argument instead of because he’s hungry.

They spend the day in. Tony takes many calls, but whenever he leaves the apartment to take them Happy keeps the boy company. Happy talks to him slowly and quietly, like he’s made of glass. Each word he speaks is careful and planned.

You don’t need to talk to me like that, Peter says.

Happy shrugs. “How should I talk to you then?”

Peter shrugs. “Normal. Well, a nicer normal.”

And so Happy does.

...

Saturday night passes. It doesn’t pass fast or slow, it just passes. Once Tony is in the bathroom brushing his teeth and Happy is in his own suite, Peter sneaks only three servings of his sleeping aid and eases himself into bed. The back of his skull is erupting with little needle pricks. but once he closes his eyes they fade.

There is no danger here. The sense is just acting up, spitting at false alarms.

Peter sleeps. It’s dreamless. He doesn’t wake up until eleven the next morning.

...

The day passes. Peter goes for a walk with Happy after some prompting. They go out for lunch. It’s okay. At Peter’s request, they don’t talk much. Happy keeps looking at him weird, not with the pity look but with something else.

Oh well. Let him look.

...

It’s ten PM Sunday and Tony is in his room taking another call.

Peter doesn’t ask what all the calls are about.

When Tony comes out to the main room again, he looks old. In the low light his hair looks completely gray. His eyes are masked in shadow.

When did Tony Stark get so old? “Peter. Listen, maybe we should try and talk again.”

“Okay. About what?”

“Just okay? Yesterday I had to pry the words out of you and you kept pushing me away. Now it’s just _okay_?”

“Yeah.” Peter says gruffly. “About what.”

His brows are furrowed, his voice pointed. “You probably know what. About a couple things, and the most pressing is _you_.”

“Okay.”

“What are you doing to yourself, kid.”

Peter’s head snaps towards him. _Is, is he talking about the sleep aid?_ “What am I doing to myself?”

“Yeah. You’re a _zombie._ It’s... It’s okay to cry some more, okay to show emotion. It’s like I’m sharing a hotel with a ghost. It’s starting to freak me out, honestly I’d rather you be _sad_ again. Be anything, really.”

Its coming back. The anger. “God, how uncomfortable for you.”

“See!” Tony is talking with his hands, using jagged gestures. “That’s something at least. An emotion. Those are good, work on those.”

“Just like you do?” He watches Tony’s hand, making sure they don’t get too close to him.

Tony makes a face. “Alright kid, emotions and feelings are great but let’s not develop an attitude.”

“Yeah, can’t have two of those in the same room, huh?” Peter’s words bite.

Tony sighs. He expects the two of them to dissolve into another argument, but they don’t. In fact, Peter expects the two of them to dissolve into an argument whenever they talk, but they don’t.

“You’re shutting everything out. It’s not good for you, trust me. It’s... It’s all gonna come back later if you don’t handle it now. It, the grief, it doesn't just go away.”

“I... I know.” The ever present weight on his shoulder increases tenfold and his knees threaten to buckle. He wonders if the other man noticed-

Tony’s hand is on his shoulder, keeping him upright. Peter wonder’s when they got that close. “Do you?”

“I think so.”

The man motions for him to take a seat on the bed. He does, and Tony sits next to him. He’s sitting so close they’re thighs are almost touching. “Just don’t bottle it up. That just makes it hurt more later.”

“Okay.”

“Just _okay?_ ”

The weight sitting on him presses down, like two invisible hands trying to push his head underwater. But there are no hands. There is no water.  Regardless, Peter gives up and lets himself sink. “Yeah. Just okay.”

There’s an arm around his shoulder. “If, if you ever feel like maybe you can’t handle it alone, tell me, okay? I can get someone for you to see. A... professional.  And they help, they really do.”

A shrink. Peter’s mouth tastes funny.

“I’ll... tell you if that happens. But for now I’m fine.”

_You’re not fine and you know it._

The two of them just sit like that for a moment. Tony clearly struggling with what to do or say next, but Peter is content to just sit there. The man waits. Peter can feel his fingers drumming across his back. He’s waiting for him to say something, Peter realizes, but there is nothing he wants to say.

The funeral is tomorrow. His aunt is very dead. It hurt so bad it stopped hurting. The world is heavy.

Tony clears his throat, maybe as a sign for Peter to say something, but his mouth stays shut.

“Kid. We also need to talk about the next step.”

He feels something return to his chest, and it’s tight. It’s like a grip around his heart. Peter really doesn’t want to talk about this. He really doesn’t want to talk.

“Like... Like where I’m gonna go, you mean.”

“Yeah, like that. Have... You thought about it?”

“I’m not doing foster care.” He stares at far wall. He’s been staring at a lot of walls, come to think of it. He tries to sound sure of himself. “I’m not going with some stranger.”

Tony’s voice is quiet. Dull, like he’s trying not to keep his cool but to keep Peter’s cool. “Okay, I get it, it might be hard to be Spider-man while staying in some stranger's house in the suburbs, yeah.”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t about Spider-man.”

Tony’s hand rubs small circles into his back. Prompting, but not pressing.

“I, uh. When my-my parents... left. When my parents left, May and Ben had a little ap-ap- _apartment_ in Brooklyn, one bedroom, real tiny, the likes. It, uh. They weren’t real well off, money-wise. Or health wise. May had just had a heart attack, too. Bad heart. Genetics.” He’s rambling. “Anyway, social services decided they weren’t in a great place to take in a seven year old kid, yeah?”

Tony’s looking at him. He’s got an unreadable expression but he knows what Peter’s about to say. He probably already knew.

“It was just a few months. Until May got better, and they moved into a bigger place. Uncle Ben, he got two jobs. But until then, I stayed in foster care.”

“Did... did your foster parents...” Mr. Stark seems tongue tied. Peter can’t help but think how wrong that is. Men like Tony Stark don’t get tongue tied. “Did they hurt you? Abusive, or...?”

Peter blanches. “What? No, god, no. Just. I didn’t like it, okay? If anything, they were too nice. But, I kept thinking, if I’m staying with these people and not my uncle and aunt, how are my parent’s gonna find me again?”

“Oh.”

“ _Yeah_ , and, God, Mr. Stark. My aunt and uncle had to try so hard to get me back...  Took so long. It. It just _sucked_.” He feels the energy leave him. Everything’s creeping back, and this time he doesn’t shove it back down. It starts to leak, and his eyes leak too.

Tony  pulls him a little close, but not too close. “Yeah, that sucks.”

Peter is falling apart, he can feel it. If he wants to say anything, he knows he needs to say it now before he’s right back where he was two days ago. “I, uh. Mr. Stark. I wanna stay with you.”

Tony _sighs_ . He fucking _sighs._ “Okay.”

“Just okay?” His voice cracks.

“Yeah, just okay.”

There is a lot more that needs to be said. What’s going to happen, where they’re gonna stay. What this means.

But they both drop it. That was a lot of ground, Peter reasons. That’s enough for now.

Tony checks a ridiculously expensive watch and warns Peter that he ought to get some sleep.

A big day tomorrow, he reminds him.

Yeah, big day tomorrow, Peter nods.

...

As soon as Mr. Stark is in his own room Peter feels the seams being undone. He kept it in for so long, he tried so damn hard- but now it’s coming and his eyes won’t stop watering. It drips down his face, into his nose and it hurts.

It’s raw.

It’s suffocating.

Peter doesn’t measure how much of the sleeping aid he takes, he just takes as much as he can swallow without his useless throat pushing it all back up. When the warning goes off in his head he ignores it and curls up in the blanket. It dies eventually, and Peter feels sleep starting to take him.

He just wants to sleep. Dreamless, dead to the world sleep.

He’s still crying when he can’t open his eyes anymore.

...

Happy shakes him awake at ten in the morning. Peter rubs the sleep out of his eyes with heavy, shaking hands and sits up. His legs don’t want to get out of bed.

Peter’s throat constricts when sees a him-sized black suit waiting at the end of the bed. Peter swallows, and nods.

Today’s the day.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's the funeral and Peter will not shut down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a month but better late than never, right? Right. 
> 
> This one's not all doom and gloom. There are a couple sentences of heartfelt dialogue!

The boy stumbles into the bathroom clutching the dark suit in a way that is sure to wrinkle it. He lays it across the counter top with shaking hands, and focuses his eyes to the mirror.

Peter Parker looks dead. His skin is pale. His eyes are bloodshot. His shirt has snot stains from the night before. But, Peter muses, he’ll have time to look dead later. Now, he’s gotta look presentable. Slowly, as if it will bite him, Peter changes into the suit. He gets the pants on, he gets the button up at least mostly buttoned and tucked in. He slings the blazer over his shoulders and ties to ignore how heavy it feels.

He’s tempted to call that good enough. Tempted to take it all off, even, and fall back into bed. For a moment he fantasizes that this is all a dream and he’s still in bed. But only for a moment.

Peter never went to Ben’s funeral. He couldn’t do it. He practically killed the man, and the day of he found he could do nothing but sit and cry and breathe funny. His aunt tried everything to get him to go, right up to bribing him and spilling tears of her own, but it couldn’t be done. Peter had shut down.

He’s not going to do that today, he decides. He watched May cry when he couldn’t pull himself out of bed for Ben. He’s going to at least pull himself out of bed for her. He'll shut down tomorrow. He’ll sit and cry and breathe funny tomorrow. But not today. He’s not going to do that to her twice.

Peter looks in the mirror with a renewed sense of valor and decides that he is going to look nice for his own aunt’s funeral. And so, with more effort than he ever needed in the past, Peter brushes his teeth and combs his hair until it looks neat. He smooths out his shirt, does all the buttons, even puts on a belt.

The tie still on the counter.

Peter Parker never learned how to tie a tie. He has a brief memory of trying many times before homecoming and eventually getting it but when he tries to recreate that his hands just shake.

After a few more minutes, he hears Happy knock on the door and he gives up.

...

Tony ended up tying his tie for him. After stumbling and uselessly pulling at the laces, Tony ended up tying his dress shoes for him, too. Peter found that he was unable to do anything but sit as his hands vibrated and his knees threatened to give away. He fell back a bit, using the wall for support and Mr. Stark just pushed him into the desk chair and told him to wait there for now.

He sat. Calm and collected, if shaky and detached. He’s not sure how long he waited, but at some point Happy came by with a glass of water and two pieces of toast.

Peter chokes on the water, and doesn’t even try the toast. When he tries to set the glass down, it sticks to his fingers. He shakes his hand up and down and then stares at it blankly. He checks over his shoulders, but he’s alone in the room. He’s alone.

It just sticks to his fingers. A year ago, when Peter was first bit by a spider, he had a brief few days where he tended to stick to things but that was a _year ago_. The problem was overcome quickly and he never thought it would be a problem again.

But, he sits alone with his hand is stuck to a drinking glass on the morning of a funeral. Determined to resolve the problem now, Peter tries yanking the glass with his left hand.

Then his left hand is also stuck to the glass and if Peter wasn’t so busy looking dumbfounded at it he would’ve been embarrassed.

Then, he tries pulling his hands in opposite directions. The glass breaks, of course it breaks. It bites into his palms, and he’s trying to just drop it but his fingers are useless and squeeze when he wants them to let go. The glass crunches in his fists.

He takes one big breath in, and breathes out slowly.

Why are his hands so fucking dumb? Why can’t his body just work with him? His legs don’t work right, his hands and ears and head don’t work right.

Blood appears and Peter makes an effort to bleed over the plate of toast instead of his nice suit or the expensive hotel desk. After just a second of this, his own heartbeat starts drumming in his ears and his chest hurts. Like, it really, really hurts.

“Kid, what the hell!?”

Someone is grabbing his hands and pulling out a handkerchief. Peter recoils more than he expected himself to, almost falling over in the chair. But the grip on his hands is tight.

Tony stands above him in a matching suit and sunglasses. He takes the glasses off and lets them drop to the floor as he uses both hands to try and pull the boy’s fists apart. “Peter, breath, bud. You’re not breathing.”

Peter sucks in air, unaware he ever stopped to begin with.

“Uncurl your fingers.”

 _“Can’t.”_ He shakes his head.

“Yes you can. You have to try. Come on, keep breathing.”

He sputters and coughs. For some reason, his mouth tastes like dirty water and cement. His fingers won’t budge. “Tony,” Peter says through a throat impossibly tight, “I _can’t.”_ His chest is being weighed down by several tons, each breath harder than the last. “Can’t breathe,” he says and it comes out as a sob.

“Yes you can. You’re breathing now. You can breath, just breath slower and deeper- _goddamn it._ Happy! _Happy,_ get over here,” he calls over his shoulder.  “Peter we’re gonna move over to the sink, okay?”

Peter shakes his head because he’s certain his legs aren’t going to work if he get up.

The plate of toast is covered in red.

He hears a sharp _“Jesus Christ”_ to his left and then Happy is wrapping a bath towel around his hands and trying to pull him to his feet.

It takes all three of them to get Peter into the bathroom and with his hands over the sink. Happy takes away the towel and they are so, so, red. Peter sucks in a breath and shudders. If anything, the sight just makes his hands ball into tighter fists. They tremble over the sink and drip freely.

Both of the men are talking to him but Peter can’t hear them. He just hears his own heartbeat like a canon and he thinks he can even hear the squish of blood between his fingers.

Then that primal feeling, the preservation sense, goes off in Peter’s head as swift as a bullet. It hurts, and while it’s starting to become a familiar hurt it still makes Peter cringe. It makes his vision go black as it rings and ricochets in his skull until his hands finally, _finally_ , uncurl.

His vision returns but everything is a hazy sea of pain and colors. Through tears and grit teeth, he can make out Tony holding one hand open while Happy pulls the glass out with tweezers. His other other rests in the sink, half balled in a wet towel. When Peter flexes his fingers to see if he can still feel them Mr. Stark grip on his hand gets tighter, like he’s yanking Peter’s finger’s back. Peter yanks back, because wow that hurts-

He tries to tell them that.

They probably answer too, but Peter can’t make out much more in the way of words.  

His face feels wet. In the mirror, he sees just his red blotchy face but it’s faded and blurry.

The primal feeling fades out into nothing and with it a fog was lifted and the boy could see clearly again. Slowly, Peter feels himself coming back down. He can breathe again. He finds that he can stand on his own just fine, and that he can move each finger individually without making a fist.

“I think he’s back- or mostly back. Can you handle him if I grab the first aid kit?”

“He isn’t fighting so much, now. I think so.”

Tony’s hand is on his shoulder and he’s talking in low and simple. “Keep breathing, Parker.” He turns to step out.

“Wait,” Peter croaks with a voice so raw you’d think he’d been screaming. “Mr. Stark. Are... are we gonna be late?”

Tony looks to Happy.

Happy, still prying glass out of Peter’s right hand, checks a watch and frowns.

Tony’s expression, soft but vacant, doesn’t change. “Don’t worry. They’ll wait for us.”

He feels like sitting down. “So... we _are_ gonna be late.”

“Not very,” Happy confirms. “Not that late if we can get you bandaged up within a few minutes.”

Suddenly a lot more willing to comply, Peter completely relaxes his hand and lets Happy work over it. Not a minute later, Tony comes back in with the first aid kit in one hand and dragging a chair in the other. He sits and lets the two men pick glass out of his hands and blanket his hands in bandaids and butterfly bandages.

...

If Peter didn’t have enhanced healing, he would’ve surely needed stitches. If they didn’t have a funeral to make it to, he probably would’ve got stitches anyway. His hands felt raw and oozy, and when he was handed tissues they were to catch any leaking cuts rather than dry his eyes.

His blood clots fast, though. He heals fast, too. Eight hours from now his hands will be covered in shallow scabs and little pink scars.

They heard him into an elevator while he picks at a dark spot on his blazer. His sleeves look a little pink, too. What will he say? Nosebleed? Stuck his hands in a blender? Squeezed glass until his fingers got tired?

He bites back bile. _Whatever happened to not shutting down today?_

“Relax.” Tony has his hand on his shoulder. He stands behind the boy like pillar. “No one will notice.”

He shakes his head. “Everyone’s gonna notice.”

Tony shrugs. “Well, maybe someone. But no one’s going to say anything. They know better.”

Peter doesn’t answer, instead he keeps picking at the dark spot on his blazer like he can scrape it off.

The elevator dumps them off on the first floor and Happy and Tony walk much faster than Peter’s comfortable with. Tony, with a hand on his shoulder, leads him while Happy walks a few steps in front as if to clear an invisible crowd. Peter blinks and they’re walking out of the Baymont lobby. The sun is out, it’s hotter than most October days would be. Peter blinks, and they’re in the parking lot. The sun glares on every car in the lot.

They stop at Happy’s black sedan. It’s only after Tony’s hand on his shoulder squeezes that Peter stops and notices they aren’t alone. A man, a very ordinary man, is leaning against their car with one hand one in his pocket and one hand on a phone. He’s blonde. He’s got a beard. And he’s looking at them.

Peter doesn't realize who he is until- “ _Jesus Fucking Christ_ , what’re you doing here Rodgers.”

Captain America is leaning against their car. If it had been any other day, Peter thinks he would faint. Well, he still might faint. In fact, he’s trying very hard _not_ to faint but for considerably different reasons.

Captain America’s got his hands up in a silent surrender.  “You wouldn’t answer. I figured the only way to talk would be to come to you.”

“How did you find me?”

“Friday-”

Tony interrupts. “Never mind, don’t care. _So sorry_ but we’re going to have to take a rain check. Got places to be.” Mr. Stark’s tone is so harsh, even Peter winces. His hand leaves Peter’s shoulder only to be replaced by Happy’s.

“Tony. Don’t you think we've waited long enough?”

“I can’t do this today.” Tony says to open air. He’s not looking at Steve Rogers. He’s not looking at Peter or Happy either.

“We have to do it eventually.”

“We’re going to be late.” Happy announces evenly. He is ignored.

And Peter is shaking. He think’s his knees are going to give out. Invisible hands are pressing down on his shoulders, trying to smoosh him into the asphalt. In an effort to relieve some of the weight, he brushed Happy off and leans onto his knees. He’s either going to fall over or puke.

“Just give me a couple minutes, Tony. We got to cover some ground here, be adults.”

Tony takes off his sunglasses in one fluid motion and shoves them into a shirt pocket so violently they probably broke. “A couple minutes would’ve gone a long way a long time ago-”

“I’m trying to fix things! With everything coming do you want to be at odds right now? I- wait. _Is he okay_?”

The boy blinks and shakes. Captain Rogers is looking at him. Everyone is looking at him. Peter finds that his clenched fists reopened a few cut and are leaking again, staining the knees of his dress pants a darker black. When he tries to stand up fully, he stumbles.

Captain Roger’s starts towards him, as if to catch him when he falls, but Tony cuts him off and Happy beats him too it.

“No.” Peter can’t figure out who answered.

“Who is he? Tony, what are you doing with this kid-”

Like a snarling dog, Tony bites again. “You think we’re on our way to a fucking picnic here?” He gestures towards Peter and Happy, towards the black suits the three of them wear. “Somewhere-”

“Alright.” Captain Rogers cuts off. He’s stone faced. “I’m sorry. I... didn’t realize the occasion. I can try again later.”

“Do that.”

Captain Rogers steps away from the car.

“But I’m going to try again.”

“Okay,” Tony says much quieter.

...

“...He’s, he’s why it was a bad day, huh?”

They drive in a silent car onto a funeral on an extraordinarily nice day with _Captain America_ behind them and Peter thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he didn’t actually wake up this morning.

Tony is sitting in the seat next to him with his sunglasses back on and rigid shoulders. He doesn’t answer directly. He waits a breath, “He was cleared Wednesday night. Not necessarily welcomed back with open arms... But cleared. Legal. Given a pass. Whatever you want to call it. Him and his friend, too. Not allowed in the country, the friend, but not targeted now either. Court sided with them.”

Happy makes an indecisive sound from the front, but it doesn’t stop either of them. If Peter doesn’t ask now, he’ll never ask. “You didn't kinda want that?”

“It’s complicated, kid. A little more than hurt feelings to consider here.”

It could end there. It could end there and go away for a while but Peter continues with a remarkably even voice, “Is he who you’ve been on the phone with so much?”

Tony gives him half a glance before focusing on the window. “No, about him though. Star-Spangled asshole has been-” He cuts himself off, clearly not wanting to go into detail when he doesn’t have too. “That’s been most of it. And about you too, don’t want to just surprise Pepper with a new kid.”

Peter can’t tell if that last part is a joke or not. Instead of going on, he takes the lump of tissue Mr. Stark so graciously hands him and balls them up in his bloody hands. He takes a deep breath, feels the heft that’s been sitting on him for days shift, and eats whatever more he wants to say.

And it ends there.

...

The funeral doesn’t pass quickly. It doesn’t pass slow, either. It just passes.

It’s a closed-casket event.

He looks at the photo of her in front of the casket, and tries very, very hard not to think of her dead on the table. The easiest solution, Peter finds, is not to think.

Ned is there. A lot of other people are there too, but as soon as Peter looks away from someone he forgets their face and they just become another piece of white noise. But not Ned.

When they actually lower her into the ground Ned cries. Peter can’t, he’s out of tears, but Ned cries and they both hold each other’s hand as discreetly as they can while pretending it’s to comfort the other. If Ned noticed the bandages, which Peter thinks he would’ve had to, he either doesn’t say anything or says it passively enough that Peter forgets.

People chase the lowered casket with flowers. Peter had the honor of throwing the first one, though it didn’t feel much like an honor. Then they bury her. Some men Peter only vaguely recognizes start shuffling dirt on top of her. Covering her. Burning her. Then she’s gone.

Ned cries some more. A lot of other people cry, too. People Peter doesn’t know or recognize.

Judging by the mass of people here, May had a lot of friends. A lot of friends that want to offer condolences, too. They want to offer empty words to the boy who just lost his second set of parents, and instead of snapping and shoving them away with the most violent words Peter can come up with, he just takes their condolences with a nod or a handshake and their words become just a few more pounds sitting on his shoulders.

Then it’s over. Like everything, it ends and Peter gives Ned a hug and promises to unblock him from his phone. Instead of collapsing to his knees and clawing at the freshly turned earth, Peter takes a breath and leaves. He’s the first to leave.

Then he goes to the waiting car where Happy and Mr. Stark sit inside. It’s a beautiful day and she’s in the ground. There is no peace or solace to be had, but the way Tony and Happy look at him suggests he did something right because they look better. Their faces less tight. Spines less rigid.

“You handled that real well, Parker.”

“Yeah,” he agrees without anything further, but Peter isn’t done handling it yet.

Peter isn’t near done ‘handling it’ and he knows that when he’s finally done ‘handling it’ they won’t think it went near so well.

...

Peter is blocks the world out with loud music and a pointed look to the floor of the car until they pull back into the parking lot. Peter looks, looks twice, and is only a little disappointed when Steve Rogers isn’t waiting for them.

...

He cries a lot when they get back. That’s to be expected. Instead of letting him fall back into bed, Happy sits him down in the bathroom and fusses over his hands some more. Peter’s healing is good, but even the boy can see it’s slow today. The cuts are only barely closed. If he flexed his fingers just right, he could probably open a few again.

When he comes home hurt at night he usually eats a lot and sleeps a lot and is fine in the morning. He tells them this and they feed him and let him sleep for a little bit.

At first, Peter doesn’t sleep as much as lie face down under a mountain of blankets and blast music through his earbuds. When his phone’s battery runs dry and the music halts, maybe he sleeps then, but that doesn’t feel like sleep either.

People are supposed to feel refreshed after they sleep. Whenever Peter does, he wakes up just as tired and just as breathless.

Peter sure feels out of breath.

...

Night comes. They feed him again, look at his hands again, and maybe they aren’t as healed as they normally would be but they still heal pretty damn fast. After that, when Happy retires to his own suite, Mr. Stark stays in the mainroom with Peter.

He sits at the desk and works on something on a starkpad. On the desk he has a collection of papers sprawled out and every now and then he’ll root through them, mark one, and return back to the starkpad. Peter can hear his fingers tap. He can hear him breath, he can hear Happy in the next room and he thinks he can even hear Mr. Starks heartbeat.

It’s loud. This happens sometimes, where things are just loud and there is nothing Peter can do to ignore it until it passes. Things are bright, too. The overhead light so obnoxiously blaring and the glow from the stark pad rivaling it. The blanket feels scratchy. He can still smell the dinner he had thirty minutes ago.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony cranes his neck, maybe surprised that the boy is speaking at all. He waits for Peter to continue, but prompts him after a couple awkward seconds. “Need something, squirt?”

God, why does he talk so loud? Peter knows he’s talking normal. Maybe even softly for him, but it grates his ears regardless. “Why are you here?” Peter asks without thinking.

He blinks, taken back. “I... I just thought maybe you wouldn’t want to be alone right now.”

“You don’t need to watch me. If you, uh, gotta. Work on something. It’s fine.”

Tony gestures to the papers in front of him and shakes the starkpad for emphasis. “I can do both. It’s fine, kid.”

“Just fine?”

Tony gives a single huff of amusement but he the look on his face doesn’t seem amused. He turns back to the mess of papers and the starkpad. His fingers _tap tap tap_. “Yeah, just fine.”

“Could you turn off the overhead light?”

“Why, don’t tell me you’re gonna sleep again already? We talked about the whole ‘you being a ghost’ thing didn’t we?” Mr. Stark is still turned towards his work. He doesn’t see Peter with his eyes squinted and fists pulling at the blanket.

Peter bites his tongue. He can’t seem to talk right.  “It’s. Just. I, uh. Never mind.”

Tony spares him a confused side eye but then reaches across the desk to the light fixture on the wall and flicks it off. He turns on the desk lamp. His eyes never leave his work when he asks, “You remember we’re talking to social services tomorrow, right?”

The boy blinks. The light is better, but the man still talks too loud, and Happy is too loud in the other room, and even the buzzing of the desk lamp is too loud. And he might have forgotten about the meeting with social services tomorrow.

Tony takes his silence as an answer. “One o’clock sharp. Pepper’s gonna be there. Some lawyers, too. Have, have you met Pepper yet?”

Peter doesn’t know why he asks that. They both know he hasn’t met Pepper yet, though he’s heard about her enough. Seen pictures, too. The background of Tony’s phone is Pepper, if Peter remembers right. “N-no.”

Tony starts running his mouth. He’s good at that, at tangents, rambles. At talking just to fill the air. “You’ll like her, everyone seems to, and she’ll like you too. I’ve talked about you a lot, but she wants to meet you. Can’t complain, seeing as I’m about to dump a kid on her and so she ought to know who you are. But you’ll like her.”

Peter cocks his head, but the man doesn’t see. “Was, was that a _j-joke_?”

Tony doesn’t pick up on the edge to Peter’s voice. “We really ought to work out this stutter. You were doing so well- never mind.” He _tap tap taps_ away at the starkpad. “Was what a joke?” he adds, like he almost forgot. Like he’s trying to play it off as nothing. Like he doesn’t know what Peter’s talking about.

_Tap tap tap._

“Just. Dumping a kid on her. That’s... it’s not funny.”

There’s an awkward pause. One beat, then two beats where the man’s fingers finally still and the tapping stops. Then Tony tears himself from the desk. He swivels in the desk chair to face Peter, and man that chair squeaks loud. “Peter...” He starts quietly in the voice he uses when he thinks Peter’s about to break. It’s too soft and it’s too condescending, and he thinks Peter doesn’t get it but Peter gets it fine. “Alright. Poor choice of words, I’ll filter myself better, okay?”

He’s trying hard to de-escalate. To backpedal. He’s looking at Peter with that pity look and it’s not the first time today. It’s only then Peter realises his eyes are wet again, and sure, why not. They’re always wet. He’s always crying. “I’m sorry.” His voice wobbles and neither of them really know what Peter is sorry for.

“Yeah, me too buckaroo.”

Peter feels his face crack a smile despite himself. “ _B-buckaroo?_ ”

Tony swivels back around, waves a hand nonchalantly, and starts tapping again. “Just trying out new pet names. We’re gonna be housemates, figured I’d need more material than kid, kiddo and spider-boy.”

“ _Buckaroo_.” Peter repeats. He’s laughing. It’s the first time he’s laughed since Thursday.

“Okay. I’ll throw that one out. How do you feel about sport? Maybe slugger? Petey-pie?”

He shakes his head and stifles another laugh. Mr. Stark continues on.

“Called you squirt a couple minutes ago. You didn’t seem appalled to that one.”

Peter’s voice is stronger than it’s been all day. “I’m ‘ _appalled’_ to all of them.”

“Hmm. I’ll keep working on it.”

_Tap tap tap._

Things are going good. Peter was crying just a minute ago, but after a complete 180 he finds the strength to ask, “Where are we gonna stay?”

“I’m working on that.”

“Meaning?”

“Looking at apartments and Penthouses in Manhattan. I, I was kinda thinking that we’d stay around here until you were over the whole ‘high school thing’ and then I could move you into the compound.”

“To... the compound.” Very suddenly Peter feels funny. The wrong kinda funny, the ‘got hit with a metaphorical bus’ kinda funny.

“Yes- you got a room there already. When you’re ready to move up, it’ll be waiting. Until then, we can hang around here.”

_Tap tap tap._

Mr. Stark takes Peter’s silence as confusion. “I don’t think it would be good to stay there now, if you catch my drift. If you weren’t ready a couple weeks ago, I doubt you’d be ready after having several doses of trauma shoved down your throat. But. We’ll take it slow. Play by ear. Work you towards it.”

Peter is still silent. He is looking at the dozens of little scabby cuts on his hands. He’s being promised a spot on the team in the coming future but it feels wrong.

Mr. Stark swivels back around. “Is, is something wrong, _Petey-pie_?”

Peter doesn’t meet Mr. Stark's eye. He isn’t smiling anymore, the ugly pet name ignored.

“I. I don’t.” His throat is tight all over again. “It might be a while before _Spider-man_ is ready for that, after all this.”

“Well, when Spider-man is ready, the team will be waiting.” Tony’s voice is devoid of sarcasm and way too soft again. Like he’s seven and recently orphaned. Like he’s fourteen and lashing out after Ben left. But Peter is fifteen and a half years old and he’s come to hate that voice. Pitying, condescending, re-assuring to the point of insincerity and completely wrong coming out of Tony Stark’s mouth. “I’ll be waiting too. Spider-man can take his time on this. _Peter_ can take his time on this one.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

Tony bristles. “Like what?”

“Like. Like that. That voice. You, you keep doing it. It doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t make me feel better.”

His tone changes very suddenly. “Yeah, alright. How should I talk to you, huh? When I talk normal you get offended and try and start a fight, when I try and coddle you, that’s not good enough either?”

“You know?” Peter can’t stop. “Fuck this-”

 _“Language.”_

He ignores him. “There is no happy medium? You’re either sarcastic or talking like I’m six?” Peter’s talking just as sharp as Tony.

“You’re blowing this way out of proportion, _sport_.” The pet names don’t sound too friendly. “This hole ‘teenage angst’ shtick better disappear pretty quickly or else-”

“Or else _what_?” Peter’s bubbling. “You’ll just dump ‘the kid’ somewhere else, instead of on you and Pepper?”

“... Or else nothing.” It’s a real awkward silence. Tony came back down and is calm again, no, pitying again, while Peter is still revved and maybe looking for a fight. He can’t help it. He just keeps getting angry.

“Peter, look at me.”

Peter’s eyes flicker up.

“You’re not a burden.”

God, Peter feels heavy.

“I’m not dumping you on anyone. You’re wanted, okay?”

He swallows, and nods but he’s unsure.

Sarcasm-free, no attempt at a joke. Tony Stark catches his eye again and stares at him with perhaps the most sincere look the man will ever wear. “You are _not_ a burden to me. I’m here because I want to be.”

The boy blinks away wetness. He can’t meet the other’s eyes any longer. “Okay.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many of the comments claim they are crying. How many of you actually cried, be honest
> 
> also, I gotta thank everyone for their nice comments. Without them I wouldn't have gotten this far. Thanks for the feedback, folks. Why don't you tell me what you think of this one?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets acquainted with the hood of an SUV and then gets a front row seat as shit hits the fan. He meets Pepper, and things get better except not really.

When Mr. Stark finally leaves him alone for the night, after a couple of tense hours sitting in the same room saying nothing, Peter feels the tension disappear. He then roots through his backpack for the sleeping aid with all intent to sleep for the next twelve hours. But when he pulls it out, it feels light. It’s almost empty. There’s a swallow left, at most.

He sends a glance to Tony’s room. No light comes underneath the door. When he’s sure he hears nothing coming from the other room either, he unscrews the bottle.

Peter takes the swallow and just hopes that’s good enough. He sets the empty bottle on the nightstand and waits for something to happen.

Nothing happens.

With his metabolism, things tend to hit him immediately if at all. After sitting and waiting for fifteen minutes Peter realizes that the sleep aid isn’t going to do anything for him so he gets his shoes on. He finds his wallet, buried at the bottom of the bag, and checks to make sure he’ll have enough cash. He throws a hoodie on as well as a jacket Tony packed for him and opens the door to the hallway as quietly as he can.

He leaves the hotel room, and waits a moment for someone to come out and stop him. No one does.

He leaves the hotel.

Manhattan is bright and loud at eleven o’clock. It’s breathing, moving. Peter feels a part of himself long to move with it. When was the last time he went out as Spider-man? Wednesday? Less than a week but longer than the boy is used to. It wasn’t until he was outside watching the city that never sleeps until he realizes he was getting itchy feet.

But now wasn’t the time for Spider-man. It probably wouldn’t be time for Spider-man for a very long time, and for his own sake Peter ought to learn how to curve that itch. Maybe, if he thought to bring his web shooters, he’d go out. But he doesn’t, and he won’t go get them. Instead Peter makes the trip to the same convenience store, all while trying not to look suspicious. Because a fifteen year old boy alone on a school night in Manhattan is suspicious.

Maybe it’s dangerous. In fact, the little hum in the back of his skull is trying to tell him that it could be dangerous. It’s constant but small so Peter finds a way to ignore it.

But Peter gets to the convenience store with little human interaction, and gets out with a new bottle of sleeping aid.

On the way home Peter is careless and gets hit by a car. He isn’t looking, and as soon as he steps into the street he is confronted with headlights and feels the wind pummeled out of him like he’s a popped balloon. The danger sense goes off full throttle a moment later, as he rolls over the hood of the car and skids to the ground.

It’s late. It’s never late. And Peter’s never done something so rash as get hit by a car because he’s _Spider-man_ , and Spider-man doesn’t get hit by goddamn _cars_.  

His danger sense is screaming at the base of his skull, and Peter just lays there shocked and hopes it shuts up soon. It hurts. It hurts a lot even, not just pins and needles but a desperate throbbing. Then the shock wears off and everything else hurts too, hurts bad, and suddenly his little sixth sense doesn’t seem so painful.

“You okay?!” Someone is getting out of the car. It’s a big car, too. Mid-size SUV, white and shiny and reflecting every light from the street. Too bright. Its engine too loud. There’s a Peter-sized dent at the front. Why did he have to get hit by such a big car? “Holy shit, I don’t see you! Are, are you alright?! What can I do?”

The cashier from the convenience store is outside, too. Talking on his cellphone to the cops and waving a few oncoming cars away from the accident.

The driver is at his side.

It hurts. Peter is only dimly aware that it shouldn’t hurt this much, given who he is. He just feels slow. Tired. A breathless lump lying in a street that’s too loud and too bright. He looks up and see’s the driver kneeling over him, her mouth moving and trying to roll him onto his back.

When he sucks in his next breath, his sixth sense goes off like a light.  His body aches all over and he can’t tell what’s damaged as he sits up, but he knows that it’s bad. Well, bad for him, anyway. When he sticks out his hand, the driver blinks at him, brow furrowed, and helps him to his feet only after he tries to rise by himself.

Both the driver and the cashier are staring at him like he grew another head. Peter knows that he should still be on the ground, and maybe after a hit like that, he shouldn’t be conscious.

Pet finds his legs, and they wobble at first, and he takes a hesitant step. When he doesn’t collapse he takes another. He scoops the bottle of sleeping aid off the pavement where it landed, miraculously dented but not broken, and then he breaks out into a sprint. He flees and tries to ignore the shouts of the man and woman behind him and just books it.

He’s standing in front of the Baymont in just a minute and a half. The adrenaline wears off, and his body is aching twice as much as before. He realizes his elbows are bloody, scratched through the coat he was wearing. His face feels swollen, and when he touches a finger to his temple it comes away red.

Shaky breath in, shaky breath out. He stumbles through the lobby with his hood up. He smashes the elevator and thanks any god who will listen when it opens and there is no one else in there. Inside the elevator, he feels himself grow heavy and his breath grow tight. This elevator never felt so small before. He props himself up in the corner and watches as the tiny elevator spins around him. When it dumps him on the right floor, he limps out and nearly barfs. He has to wipe at his face to make sure no dirty pipe water is dripping over it. Instead, it’s sweaty and a little bloody.

He makes it into the suite after struggling with the keycard for several minutes. His fingers are just too numb to function right. When he’s inside, he throws the bottle of sleeping aid on the bed and stumbles into the bathroom, stealth forgotten in light of the panic gripping him. He flicks on the bathroom light, and it’s blinding.

When he looks in the mirror he recoils. It’s bad. He tugs off the ripped coat and hoodie, then his t-shirt too. He’s covered in light bruises growing darker and scrapes that trail up the entire left side of his body, where he hit the car and then the road. It stretches from his hip, to his torso, his elbows, and finally the left side of his face. He didn’t even remember his head hitting the pavement until he sees how his face is half purple and scraped. He’s covered in road rash.

Spider-man has been hit by things like cars before, and it hasn’t done this much damage. He’s caught a car with his hands and slammed into a bus before, and it didn’t do this much damage. The Shocker’s weird punching weapon didn’t do damage like this. He’s fallen at least two and a half stories, and it didn’t do damage like this.

He’s queasy. Peter wonders if he should get Happy or Tony. Happy, he decides. Tony would just get mad. Happy will get mad, too, but mad Happy he can deal with.

But, the boy reasons, it’s not like he hasn’t been hurt before. Homecoming night is the most recent in memory, where everything ached and his ribs screamed at him the rest of the night. He went to Ned's and slept it off. By midday the next day, nothing was visible. This really isn’t as bad as homecoming. It looks bad, but it’s all on the surface. Easy healing, he figures.

He can sleep it off, like he always does. Food and sleep equal healing. So Peter makes his way out of the bathroom but leaves the light on. He fumbles into the suite’s little half-kitchen, opens the fridge and drinks a quarter gallon of milk then shoves someone’s lunch leftovers in his mouth. His hands shake as he shuts the fridge door and wonder’s back towards the bed. He kicks his shoes off, and then remember’s that he’s shirtless. And that his bloody coat and hoodie are in the bathroom. And that he left the light on. And that he should at least wipe away the blood so he doesn’t stain the hotel’s blankets.

He drags himself back into the bathroom and scrubs at his scrapes with a washcloth. They are already scabbing, and while they oozed blood when he arrived they seemed to have stopped. He turns off the light and shoves his bloody clothes under the bed. He finds pajamas in his bag and doesn’t notice when he puts the shirt on inside-out. Then he grabs the bottle of sleep aid and chugs what he can, because heavy sleep means heavy healing and he’d sure like to look presentable in the morning. His sixth sense throws a fit but it goes ignored. It hasn’t been much help lately and Peter isn’t about to listen to it now.

He hides the bottle, still about two thirds full, under his pillow and lets himself be overtaken by a near immediate sleep.

...

_“What the fuck is this?”_

Peter curls up tighter under the blanket.

Someone gives his form a shove, and repeats, “What is this? Get the hell up. Get up _now._ ”

Peter feels consciousness come to him slowly, piece by piece. His body keep trying to pull himself back into a dreamless nothing.

But Tony isn’t having it. “Face the music, _buckaroo_ , you have some explaining to do.” Then he grabs the blanket and rips it off the boy in one motion, and freezes. Peter, now as awake as he can be, is staring at a wide eyed Tony Stark holding an empty bottle of sleeping aid.

Peter remember’s the empty bottle he left on the nightstand. Shit.

He must’ve said that out loud. “Yeah, shit is right. What the hell happened to you?”

Peter feels himself wake up as he looks down at himself. Little bloodstains along the left side of his inside-out shirt. Aches all over. He can only imagine what his face looks like.

He swallows thickly. “I can explain.”

“Please do.” Tony sounds like Tony again, his voice sharp and hostile and his stiff stance beside the boy is aggressive and demanding. He’s mad. He’s real mad.

It’s surprisingly hard to talk. His body still feels heavy, sleep still trying to drag him under again. “I went out last night.”

“How? I didn’t pack you your suit, that’s still back in your apartment-”

“Not as Spider-man. I just went ou-out. As me.”

“That doesn’t explain why you look like you were hit by a train.”

“Car. Hit by a, a car. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“It sure doesn’t look pretty, kiddo. I’m sure it looked real good last night, given you’ve had several hours to heal already. Why the fuck didn’t you wake me up? Why the fuck did you go out, even? _Where did you go?_ ”

That’s a lot of f-bombs for a guy who get’s mad when Peter curses. “I didn’t go anywhere. I. Was. Just getting stir crazy, ya know? I just wanted to get out.”

“No. You wanted to _sneak_ out.”

Peter’s voice cracks, “I’m sorry Mr. Stark.”

“Jesus Christ, what am I going to say to the social worker? They’re gonna think I beat you.”

“I’m sorry.” Tears prick at his eyes, a feeling he’s well accustomed too. He gets only a moment before Tony tosses him the empty bottle. He catches it with hands covered in little pink scars. Those should be gone right now.

“What about that? I sure as shit didn’t pack that for you. When did you get it.”

Peter’s all too aware of the other bottle hidden beneath the pillow. “I went and got it the first night here. I just wanted to, uh, sleep. Without dreams.”

“That shouldn’t be empty by now. You know that. That shouldn’t be anywhere near empty, we’ve only been here a few days.” Four days, Peter thinks. But he pretty much finished it in three.

He feels very small. “I’m sorry.”

“And I’m tired of hearing that. I thought you were just a heavy sleeper. Thought you didn’t like mornings.”

Peter nods. He’s looking at the far wall, trying to ignore Mr. Stark's pointed gaze. He hasn’t made the man this angry in a long time. Ever, maybe. “This is probably why you’re healing power has been so shoddy. Too much of this will mess with your metabolism.”

Peter's face is red.

“Without you’re ridiculous metabolism, you don’t have you’re ridiculous healing. You following? That’s why you’re hands were so _fucked_ for so _long_.” Tony says slowly, like he’s explaining it to a little kid. Like Peter wouldn’t get it. Like he’s mocking the boy.

He nods and stares at the wall. A hand reaches out and grabs his face. If he wasn’t so groggy, he probably would’ve caught the hand, or at least shoved the arm away. But he didn’t. Tony makes Peter face him. He hasn’t shaved yet, he’s got stubble coming in around the usual facial hair. His brow is scrunched, and he’s biting the inside of his cheek as if to keep himself from saying something cruel.

But he says something cruel anyway. “You nearly killed yourself, between this and the car.”

Peter shakes his head but doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He’s trying too hard not to cry to say anything.

“I mean it. Maybe you didn’t come close to dying, but your actions are pretty deadly, _Petey-pie_.”

He shrugs and tries to look away. Tony isn’t having it. “No, don’t shrug at me. _Don’t_ shrug this off. This is a big fucking deal. If social services knows this happened to you on my watch, they’d cart you away. Don’t think that they won’t. Do you want that? This an elaborate way to deny me custody-”

“Tony. Lay off him.” Suddenly Happy is in the doorway connecting the two suites, looking like a bigger tougher man than Peter ever considered him. He’s got shaving cream on half his face. He’s covered in a bathrobe. Tony must've been pretty loud, Peter reasons.

The two men stare at each other, an argument without words, and Happy must win because Tony resides.

“Yeah. I’ll lay off.” He looks at the boy again, and Peter can’t stand him looking at him like that. He can’t stand anybody looking at him like that. “I’ll lay off and go call _your_ social worker and beg to re-schedule. I’ll say you’re having an episode or something, because if they see you like this,” he gestures to the boy, “it’s over.”

...

Peter sits at the island in the suite’s semi-kitchen while Happy makes eggs. He gives Peter a whole mound of them, probably in hopes of speeding up his healing. At the moment Peter would give just about anything to heal faster. He’s accustomed to pain, but never for long. And while it’s not in any way excruciating, Peter is learning that his pain tolerance is high but burns out fast. Happy must notice, because when he pours them both some milk he also fishes out some painkillers for him.

“I didn’t mean to make him mad.”

“I know. Give him time to cool off and let me talk to him.”

Peter shovels in eggs.

“The next time you wander when you aren’t supposed to, and get hurt and all, just tell us. Right away. He wouldn’t have been so mad about any of this if you didn’t try and hide it.”

“I tried to hide it because I knew he’d be mad.” Peter takes the painkillers dry. He continues when Happy doesn’t. “I thought you’d be mad, too.”

“I am mad. The bottle, read the back. It’s the nastiest one you could take, and I think you knew that. But, sometimes, the boss needs to understand that you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

“I’m sorry.”

Happy nods his head. “Good. That’s enough. Tony will get over it, alright?”

Peter shrugs.

The two finish breakfast.

...

Tony was talking to the social worker for a very long time on the phone. When he emerges from his room he is stiff and unpleasant. Unpleasant to look at, unpleasant to be around. It’s like his foul mood is contagious, and it’s not as though Peter was in a good mood before, but now its worse. Okay, maybe it’s not worse so much as he has a mood now. Just a minute ago he wasn’t feeling much of anything.

“Okay. Tomorrow. They’re gonna see you tomorrow. Think you can heal by then?”

It’s not so much a question as an order to heal by tomorrow. Peter shrugs, then thinks better of it and nods.

“Good. As far as they know you had a nervous breakdown or something so ham it up for them tomorrow, okay?”

Peter nods.

...

Though the meeting with social services is postponed until Peter doesn’t look like he was hit by a bus but midday Pepper still comes around.

She’s okay.

She talks to Tony privately for a while before even seeing Peter. When they meet, Pepper comes in _alone_ and approaches Peter _alone_ as he drinks orange juice at the kitchen’s island with his earbuds in. She smiles. It’s really pretty smile, but it makes Peter cringe because it’s so goddamn forced. She’s got that look. The pity look, or variation thereof.

Peter takes one look at here and knows that she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get it, he can tell by how straight she stands and how casually she looks at him. She doesn’t get it and if she’s lucky, she never will.

They just look at each other for a minute. Peter tears his earbuds out and finishes his orange juice. Peter can’t think of anything to say to her. _Hi, guess you’re my new mom. Hey, I’m making your fiance adopt me. Nice to meet you I think I’m drowning._

Yeah. None of those quite roll off the tongue.

Lucky for Peter, Pepper seems to have a better grip on the whole conversation aspect.

“Hi Peter,” she says.

“Hello, Ms. Potts,” Peter says.

She corrects him with Pepper, and asks how he’s doing.

And Peter doesn’t know why he says it, but he does. “I feel like I’ve been slowly sinking since Thursday and I can’t hold my breath much longer,” he says calmly.

Pepper blinks at him, and Peter wonders if he ruined it already. Too blunt. Too honest, too quick. But shit, she asked and no one else has.

“That good huh?” Her eyes knowing. Maybe, just maybe, Peter judged too soon. She stands straight, but if Peter squints he can see her shoulders sagging from an invisible weight, too. An experienced gleam in her eye. Fierce, warn, but not cruel.

Peter shrugs.

Pepper takes a seat next to him at the kitchen island. “I can only imagine, hun.”

And they sit there for a little bit. Pepper asks some more questions and Peter answers in two words or less.

They aren’t getting anywhere, but Peter doesn’t really want to get anywhere so it’s fine. Maybe, he realizes when she lets a near inaudible sigh escape, he’s being rude. He blinks and hopes Tony isn’t listening in, because Peter’s sure he’d get a lecture about this if the man knew how difficult he was being. Peter interrupts Pepper mid sentence with “I’m sorry Ms. Potts.” He’s clutching his hands tight and he’s breathing rough. He’s about to turn away when-

“It’s kinda stuffy in here, don’t you think?”

Yes, Peter says.

“Do you like Indian food?”

The boy blinks. Yeah, Peter says.

Then Pepper is fishing around in her purse for car keys and telling Peter to grab the keycard. She starts leading him towards the door but Peter stops her.

“Should we tell Tony or Happy?”

“Why? Do I look like I need permission?”

He considers telling her he just got in trouble for going out without telling anyone, but stops himself because he’s sure she already knows. Peter shakes his head, “No, but I might.”

Pepper looks him up and down with a look of scrutiny and Peter is about to break until she says “Well, I give you Permission. Let’s go.”

Peter likes Pepper.

“But, uh. People are gonna stare. I look like, I uh. Got hit by a car.”

“Let them stare.”

“But... What if, like...”

She cocked her head and smirks, like she knows she has him. “Like what?”

“Like nothing,” Peter huffs.

Then Pepper takes his hand gently and pulls him towards the bathroom while rooting around in her purse for something else. She pulls out a makeup kit.

...

In the end, Peter still looks like he was hit by a car, but he was hit by a smaller car. Admittedly, he’s healed a good bit from that morning, but the bruises are still there and the best Pepper can do is make them looks a little smaller and fainter. She slaps some bandaids over the remaining scrape on his temple and deems it good enough.

Peter looks in the mirror. He can tell he’s wearing makeup. He can tell he’s bruised like old fruit. But after Pepper spends near thirty minutes making him look presentable, Peter can’t find it in himself to deny her.

“Is it good?” She asks, admiring him like an artist admires her own painting. She has her brows furrowed and a hand on her chin, but Peter thinks that’s just for show, in the way Tony’s tangents are for him.

“Better than I could do,” Peter admits.

And then they leave.

...

Then Pepper takes him out for a late lunch, and she drives him all the way to central park where they walk around and then find a bench and a pond where they feed some ducks.

And it’s nice. It’s nice in the cute domestic way Peter thought he was never going to get again, and certainly didn’t think he'd get so soon.

But when Pepper drops him off, Peter fails from the high like a plane out of the sky. Hard. Fast. Jarring and brutal.

Pepper walks him up to the suite, and she hands him over to a Tony who’s not super happy, (“Wouldn’t have minded a text or something. Could’ve at least tell me when you’d be back, brought me some takeout, maybe a postcard”), but not super upset either. Pepper brushes Tony off in a playful way that no one else in the world could. She gives Peter an unexpected pat on the shoulder, and he only flinches a little.

She gives Tony a quick peck on the cheek. She tells Peter he can call her if he needs to. Its nice. Its charming. It makes the boy’s chest feel warm and fluttery.

Then she leaves.

And Peter’s knees give out under a weight so immense he can’t keep his head up. It’s sudden, it’s abrupt. Peter thinks the world is being ripped out from inside his chest-

And then Tony is hauling him to his knees and calling for Happy in the next suite, ( _Happy,_ come in here. Happy, we need you, _now.)_

Peter doesn’t know what’s wrong other than everything in his body giving up at once like somebody cut off power to his limbs. He wonders, as he watches Tony’s mouth move but hears no words, if this is a punishment for enjoying himself with Pepper after just burying his aunt.

Peter vomits promptly, all over his shoes and the nice hotel floor.

_“-What’s wrong? What’s wrong, tell me whats happening-”_

_“-Come on Parker, in one two three four, out one two three four. Come on-”_

Peter takes a deep breath in and is aware that both men’s grips are the only things keeping him on his knees. But they are too close. It’s not a small room, but _too close, too close_ -

He doesn’t even look at which one he pushes, but one falls back and the other jumps back. One falls back several feet away. He land hard and heavy. He gives a muffled grunt and Peter vomits again. He’s crying. His hands are fists and he pushed too hard, super strength when he didn’t need it-

“-Peter, he’s _fine,_ now _breathe_.”

And so Peter breathes. His lungs take in air like he just surfaced from underwater. Then he does in again, slowly. Then again. He blinks and looks at Happy on his elbows a few feet in front of him, looking at him with a matching expression. A little confused, a little panicked. Surprised.

Peter keeps staring and keeps breathing deep, greedy breathes.

“...You back?” Tony asks from beside him. His hand is hovering, not touching.

The boy nods hesitantly. “Think so.”

He watches Happy get to his feet but decides against doing the same quite yet. He continues to kneel and pant.

“Completely back?” Tony asks skeptically.

Peter flexes his fingers, working them out of the death-grip he forced them into. “Getting there.”

After a minute he stands on his own. He gives Tony a quick warning to keep back when the man reaches out to steady him. Then he shakes himself a little bit.

The room is spacious. His movement un-constricted. Air is easy to come by. Peter is fine. Peter is fine and he hasn’t the faintest clue what just happened to him except that it was terrifying. He’s not sure his heart rate will ever come down. Or Tony’s or Happy’s for that matter.

“I’m back.”

“Holy shit.”

He looks at all the puke on the floor and wipes some sweat from his forehead. “Yeah, holy shit,” Peter agrees.

...

The three of them sit around very unsure what just happened or how to deal with it. Peter can only explain it as panic and a sudden loss of control, but he realizes that doesn’t quite cut it.

It came out of no-where, seemingly. Peter knows it came from his outing with Pepper, that it came from guilt and shock of having a good time, but he doesn’t know how to quite relay that to the very concerned Happy and Tony.

Both who look like they suffered heart attacks.

It’s a team effort, cleaning up the vomit. For privacy reasons Tony doesn’t want the room keepers to do it, and Peter doesn’t want to make strangers clean up barf. Still, watching Tony Stark and Happy clean up a fifteen year old’s vomit instills a surreal feeling.

They don’t leave him alone the rest of the night, instead opting to find something to work on in the main room until it’s time to retire.

Happy goes to bed first. He ask Peter if he’ll be fine, and Peter says yeah, I’ll be fine.

Tony stays with him until well after midnight. They watch a movie together, just some cookie-cutter action movie playing on cable. Later neither of them will remember the name in a day or two, but for now it’s satisfactory. Good enough. Passable. Tony sits beside him on the bed, working on a laptop Peter’s never seen before with an ancient flip phone curled in one hand. It buzzes once or twice.

Peter asks about it, because he can’t ignore it. The only lights in the room are the TV and this ridiculously bright little flip phone.

Tony tells him it’s nothing, but he says it in a defensive tone that suggests it’s far from nothing but harsh enough that Peter drops it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter can see Tony flip it open and start pressing buttons. It buzzes some more.

Peter, with his newfound appreciation for self preservation and not making Tony too angry, ignores it completely and goes between watching the shitty movie and texting Ned for the first time in days. He finally ‘remembers’ to unblocked his pal’s number, and Ned has a lot to say.

Then just when the movie is passing down and the credits creep up the screen...

“Peter, I want you to see someone.” Straightforward and blunt. While Peter appreciates the directness he doesn’t appreciate much else about the statement.

“What.” Peter says, not asks.

“You’re scaring me, bud.” Mr. Stark says in a voice that’s not very Mr. Stark like. “After today’s episode, and yesterday’s episode, and any that I missed and the one’s I’m sure are coming, I think that, uh, maybe you should see someone.”

“Just anyone?” Peter asks just to be a pain in the ass.

“Peter.”

“I don’t want to. That, that would be weird.” Peter tries to explain. He makes an effort to watch the rolling credits instead of looking at Tony, who is definitely staring at him now.

“Why in the world would seeing a professional be weird after aggressive panic attacks and coping through sleeping drugs, and don’t forget, the mood swings-”

“It would be weird,” Peter interrupts with a tone much stronger than the rest of him. “Because I’ll tell this ‘professional’ that I’m having problems and then they’ll tell me it all stems from my aunt dying and anxiety, which we know. Like, no duh. And we’ll talk about her dying, but I don’t want to do that? I don’t want to talk about anything. And that will be it. And it will suck. But it sucks now, so no need to go through therapy for the same product.”

Tony takes a minute to mull that over. “I don’t think you’ve said that many words at once in days.”

Peter shrugs, but knows the other is right. He feels very tired at the realization.

“I... Can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But, consider it. Really think about it. It’s different that you think it is.”

“Okay.”

“Okay you’ll do it, or okay you’ll consider it?”

God, Peter wishes they could be done already. “Okay, I’ll think about it. I... I don’t think I’ll have any more episodes. Got them out of my system, you know?”

Mr. Stark doesn’t look convinced, and Peter can’t blame him because he’s lying through his teeth.

“Okay,” Tony surrenders. He gets off the bed, shoving the little flip phone in his pocket and the laptop under his arm. “Now before I go to bed, I just gotta ask. Just a precaution, because I trust you, but is their anymore of that sleeping aid? Won’t get mad, pinky swear, just hand it over and we’ll forget about it. Put it to bed, if you will.”

There is still two thirds of a bottle under one of the pillows.

Peter’s ears are red. There’s a heat creeping up his neck.

“No. I took it all.”

“Okay, you did, which isn’t good and that scares the shit out of me, but just so we’re clear, there’s no more. And you’re not gonna go out and get more.”

All the boy can will himself to give is a one word answer. “No.”

“You’re not gonna go out _at all_ , right?”

Peter nods.

And Tony believes him. “Fabulous. Goodnight, kid. Sleep good, gotta big day tomorrow and you gotta look as least like roadkill as possible.”

...

After he’s sure Mr. Stark is gonna stay in his own room, Peter fishes the last bottle out from  between the mattress, pillow and wall. He doesn’t take any, because if this shit is messing with his healing like they said, then he ought to lay off until he at least looks normal.

And because, ya know, he’d rather fall from great heights than be found out like that again.

He hides the bottle in the very bottom of one of his bags where he intends to leave it for a long while. The boy changes into pajamas, brushes his teeth even, and launches himself into bed. He’s tired. He’s been tired for days but this is an actual tired instead of a rather-not-be-awake tired, or an emotionally tired, or even the tired from his super-healing working two days straight.

He’s just honestly tired.

But curled up in the big bed, Peter can only recall the previous conversation despite wanting to be unconscious. “Aggressive panic attacks” seems to replay in his head.

Because before this Peter wasn’t aware he was having panic attacks. They were just episodes where is body attacked itself while he was fueled with panic. He’s gotta admit, panic attack is an accurate way to put it.

He falls asleep eventually.

...

He dreams.

He dreams of May.

He dreams of trying to learn how to drive, a project he started once with Ben but never continued. He’s behind the wheel of a car much bigger than the old cadillac they owned, a white and shiny one. An SUV, big but not huge. He turns his head and instead of finding Ben, he finds his aunt next to him. She’s telling him what to do. Just drive. Stop at the light.

But Peter’s hands are stupid and his body doesn’t work right. His foot smashes the gas, his hands yank the wheel, and next thing he knows he’s taking the car up onto the sidewalk and then into this little market. There's screaming. Crumbling. And by now, Peter’s figured out it’s a dream but that doesn’t stop his heart from swimming up his throat as the building starts to collapse and his aunt screams.

Peter wakes up. Then when he pictures May, he pictures her screaming in the passenger seat instead of her beaten and naked in a morgue.

And that's not necessarily better.

...

He dreams the rest of the night, too. It doesn’t get better.

...

“How’d you sleep, _slugger_?”

Peter slept like shit and all of him shows that. His posture, how he squints at the light, the dark shapes under his eyes. Peter doesn’t even answer the man, instead opting to force cereal through his mouth.

“I’m asking because you look terrible.”

“Slept terrible,” Peter answers because maybe that would end the discussion, but no.

“Yeah, well that shit you were taking was habit forming, probably going to be hard to sleep without it for a few nights, is all. Gotta say, you at least look better. You’re face. How’s the rest of you?”

Peter considers telling him that he slept terrible because he went through a marathon of nightmares, not because of the lack any formed habits. But he doesn’t. Instead he shrugs. He is all healed, and it took twice as long as usual, he still counts it a small blessing.

“Okay, talking to two-word shrug-man, love it. Any other wise words you’d like to grace us with, or did you meet your quota already?”

Peter exhales thickly through his nose and swallows a particularly tasteless mouthful of cereal. He knows Tony is trying to joke. He’s half teasing, half calling him out, and though it’s playful it still puts the boy on edge and makes his back rigid.

Instead of fueling him, or giving into his own temper, he shrugs. Because apparently He’s two-word shrug-man, which despite himself Peter can admit is accurate.

“Hmm. Clean up after this. Shower. Dress nice, if you can, nicer than normal. Also start looking like you love me, because we’re on a thin rope with this social worker, _sport._ ”

Peter sends him a sharp glare, equal part curious equal part warning.

“I figure that you should be warned, we’re not sure exactly how this is going to go. Maybe a little rough. Probably fine, but things always tend to go wrong and this is a perfect place for Murphy's Law to jump in.”

Peter figures he needs to ask, “What could go wrong?” His voice cracks.

While usually Tony would be all over that, today he ignores it. “They might question my ability as a guardian, but with Pepper as a guardian also, and the lawyers she hired, I really think-”

“Pepper is going to be my guardian?”

Tony blinks at him and swallows. “Well, _I am_. And we are kinda getting married, kid.”

But I don’t know her, Peter bites back. He met her yesterday. He liked her yesterday. But he’s not sure he’s ready to have their two names together on a legally binding document- “I don’t know.”

“Peter. Please. Things will go so much better if she’s a co-guardian here. _Trust me._ ”

Whatever else Peter wants to say goes unsaid. He surrenders and eats the last bite of his serial with a “I guess” and a noncommittal shrug.

...

The meeting with social services goes okay. Peter is a nervous wreck on the way there, and Tony assures him that it’s probably going to be fine because why would they let Tony have him for half a week if they didn’t trust him, but Peter isn’t nervous about the meeting so much as he’s just a nervous wreck out in public.

But the meeting goes okay. Just okay.

Murphy’s law makes a brief appearance when Tony’s ability as a caretaker is brought into question, with his past drinking and current lifestyle brought up more than once. But Tony is good at selling, and great at selling himself, and so it goes okay.

But Peter’s social worker, (a lady different than Mrs. Franklen, Peter observes) doesn’t once say adoption. Instead she tosses around praises like “temporary guardianship,”  and “foster parent.”

Which is okay because Peter doesn’t super want to be adopted and he’s not on the market for new parents but he doesn’t like the idea of saying, ‘hey, this is Tony Stark my temporary guardian.’

When he starts to breath heavy and clench his fist he feels Pepper’s slim hand cover his from under the table, and he carefully intertwines their fingers.

He looks at her, and she smiles the same cute-but-totally-forced smile, and this time Peter knows it’s not because she doesn’t understand, but rather because she knows there's nothing to smile about.

And Peter holds her hand tighter.

And the meeting goes okay.

...

Tony and Pepper are granted temporary guardianship. The lawyers seem pretty happy about this, and Tony seems pretty happy about this, but Peter is unsure.

It kinda feels like walking away with a D. Passing, but the lowest possible grade.

“This gets our foot in the door,” Tony tells him. “We can start fighting for more, but at least you’re with us while we do it, right?”

Right, Peter says.

...

The day passes. Peter goes for a run after dinner. Mr. Stark almost didn’t let him go, because maybe Peter shouldn’t be alone in fear of stumbling in front of another car but Happy persuades him with a “he’s probably going stir-crazy. He’s a high energy kid that's been cooped up too long and neither of us would be able to keep up.”

And he’s right. And Mr. Stark agrees.

And Peter goes for a run, the first real athletic activity since a week ago. It’s good, but not great. Peter keeps finding himself looking up and wishing he was a little bit higher.

...

Peter has shitty dreams again all night. While it’s happening, he’s acutely aware of a mostly-full bottle that could make him stop dreaming.

...

Friday, a full week after it happened, a goddamn week, Tony drags Peter away to look at a penthouse with him. It’s nice, Peter says. And it is nice. It’s a nice Peter never expected to get to experience in his life, but that’s what’s scary.

It’s a nice Peter never expected to experience in his life and he’s found that he never longed to experience it anyway.

But when they take the tour to the top level, Peter’s eyes find a whole wall of windows and sliding glass doors leading out to a balcony, and his feet move without the rest of him.

They are atop a skyscraper. Whatever the rest building is below the penthouse became irrelevant after Peter saw the skyline of New York as it got dark. The boy doesn’t say many things are beautiful. He can recognize beauty, but never really got art or photography or any of that.

But the sight from the balcony is potentially the best sight Peter has ever seen, and any remnants of his fear of heights die right there. He loves it.

Tony signs the contract right there and they plan to move in Sunday.

...

A couple good days and Peter relapses. On Saturday, it’s like he’s back to square one and he cries for hours and kicks away Mr. Stark when he tries to help.

He throws a pillow at Happy when he tries to help.

Tony offers to put Pepper on the phone for him, but Peter knows that won’t help and shrugs into a pillow when he hears her on the other line of a phone.

Noon rolls around and someone makes him a sandwich, and a little past noon rolls around and he vomits it all up. He’s nauseous the rest of the day, and vomits again when he smells Happy making dinner in the kitchen.

In the end Peter just ends up spending the whole day trapped in bed with a ridiculous headache and headphones blasting music loud enough to hurt his hearing. Because he hasn’t been sleeping. And his head is full of May, and when it’s not full of May he feels guilty because it’s only been eight days and it should be full of May.

It feels like it’s been so much longer than than eight fucking days. If you told Peter it was mid-July he’d believe it. But it’s the end of October and all of Peter’s suffering has only lasted eight days.

...

“You doing okay?” Tony asks carefully. He sits on the edge of the bed and waits for Peter to kick him off. The boy pulls himself into a tighter ball. By now it has become apparent that Peter isn’t going to ease anytime soon. At the beginning of his fit, it could be believed that it was simply another episode and it would wear off. As the boy shakes and sobs in bed, it’s clear that it won’t just wear off.

“Peachy.” Peter mumbles.

“You’re kinda scaring me, buddy.”

_I’m scaring me, too._

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

Peter sits for a moment and wonders what he did the first time around, when Ben left. He sat around a lot. He cried a lot. He slept on the couch every night with May, the two of them barely fitting. They did that because Peter thought himself too old to sleep in his Aunt’s bed but he couldn’t be alone. It helped, when he was with her. With anybody, even, he found when he started hanging out with Ned again.

Peter remembers watching the X-files with May, both of them wrapped up in thick blankets and both of them red-eyed and exhausted. The initial shock had long worn off and what it left was a slow but terrible spreading pain, but if there was any comfort to be found it was that they both felt it. They were together, that’s what made it work. They needed each other in a way that Peter himself didn’t understand. They just... both got it.

But losing May is different from losing Ben and old coping tricks have no appeal. He doesn’t want to cuddle on the couch and watch old paranormal-crime shows. He doesn’t want to be around anybody.

“Nothing,” Peter confirms with a raw voice.

Tony, admitting defeat to himself, starts to rise and makes it halfway to the door before deciding better of it and taking a seat at the desk where he remained until nightfall.

...

Peter know’s that Tony’s hovering because because he’s scaring the man. Because they, both Tony and Happy, expect him to do something stupid.

Because Peter isn’t done handling it, not even close.

He’s not out of the woods, he’s barely taken a few steps into the forest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are so nice to me?? Thanks. Uh, that was a long one. Good job getting through it. Did you like it, at least?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weight on his shoulders threatens to never truly go away, and while he's not actively sinking this can't really be called swimming.

Peter is standing at a bus stop in the cold. He can see his own breath as his lungs heave like he’s been running. Or screaming. Their old cadillac is parked next to him, the lights still on and the engine still running. It’s parked illegally, where the bus would stop if it were still coming, but Peter knows that the car isn’t going to move anytime soon.

He blinks against the darkness and tries to steady himself for what’s going to happen next. The boy knows this scene, knows this game. Peter knows very well what’s going to happen. However, knowing the upcoming events doesn’t make him any more prepared.

He takes just a moment to collect himself. He feels the anxiety, the fear crawling all over him but in this moment he feels weightless. Light. Floaty. The weight that’s been sitting on his shoulder’s for a over a week is gone.

Peter scoffs because if that doesn’t sound like a trick he doesn’t know what does.

Then he figures he can’t collect himself anymore and tears his gaze from the empty car. He turns around. There stands a twenty-four hour convenience store with fluorescent lighting spilling through advertisement laden windows with a flickering neon sign.

Then Peter sees him.

There is a man standing in front of the convenience store. He’s got greying hair and a poorly trimmed, short beard. He stands easily six foot with broad shoulders, a little thick in the middle, arms positioned at his sides in a casual way.

His jacket is stained red from the center of his chest down.

He’s looking at Peter.

Peter’s looking at him.

“Heard you’ve hit a rough spot, Pete.”

Only one man ever called the boy Pete.

And then the weight returns full force. It’s like getting hit by a bus or falling off a building. It’s thick and shrouding, but if anything at least it’s familiar.

  
“But after everything you’ve done... It kinda makes me think you brought it on yourself, son. It’s always something with you, you know? You cadapult from one problem to another and always drag someone with you.” He crosses his arms.

Peter doesn’t answer. He knows better.

“Why’d you have to go and pull her down, too? Kiddo? Pete? I just... can’t wrap my head around it.” Ben’s voice remains even. His face sympathetic, worn, looking older and more tired than he ever did. He’s asking like he really wants to know, not like he’s blaming Peter. Not like he’s trying to guilt the boy. He’s asking like it’s a legitimate question and he just can’t figure it out.

Suddenly Peter’s having a whole lot more trouble keeping his breath steady. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. Ben isn’t supposed to say this. The dialogue makes Peter’s heart start to attack itself in his chest.

“We gave everything we had.”

Peter would run if his feet weren’t frozen.

“But in the end, I think giving you everything is what killed the both of us.”

Then Peter wakes up.

...

“Any better?” Happy asks as Peter sits at the kitchen island and eats soggy cereal.

Peter shrugs.

“Anything you want to do today?” The man asks as he brews a pot of coffee. He’s still in his pajamas.

“I don’t think so.”

“Hnn. Okay. Anything you don’t want to do today?”

“If I spend any-an- any more time in bed I think I’ll get bed sores.”

“Okay. You wanna do something then?”

Peter feels the cereal turn into cement in his mouth. “No. No.” The words come out funny.

Happy sighs. “Okay. Why are you up so early?”

Peter glaces at the clock on the hotel microwave. It’s seven AM. “Just coud-couldn- can’t sleep.” God his tongue feels dumb. His throat is tight. It’s like he can’t talk all over again.

Happy notices. “The stutter is back. It’s bad. You alright?”

No. Of course not.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

Peter shrugs. The cereal in front of his doesn’t look so appetizing anymore and the last bite he shoves down his throat doesn’t taste very good. He pushed the half-eaten bowl away.

Happy barely holds back another sigh. He pushes it back towards Peter.

“It’s moving day. You ready for that?”

“Maybe.”

Happy nods. “Make sure you’re all packed up. When you’re feeling up to it, I’m supposed to drive you to your apartment so you can chose anything you want to move to the penthouse. You feeling up for that?”

“Not... Not today.”

“Thought so. That’s alright. But, uh, I’ve been thinking. How often are you gonna want me to come around the penthouse?” Happy starts. Peter gives him a questioning look and he elaborates. “Tony isn’t so easy to live with, is all. I figured every few day’s I could come up and check on you. See how you’re doing. Tell Tony off, if he’s been a problem.”

Up until now it didn’t occur to Peter that Happy wasn’t going to be staying with them. Of course he wouldn’t, but he never really considered it.

For some reason Peter doesn’t like the idea of living with Tony alone.

“I’d like that.” Peter decides once he looks at how genuine Happy’s face is. It’s rare, to get a look like that. One so honest and sincere.

“Good. Every three days, at first. Whenever you ask me to come over, too.”

“Can I ever just, you know, call you?” Peter starts, even though he has no plans to ever call. “Just to, like, talk-”

“Of course.” And Happy still looks genuine, and Peter’s content to lie so the man at least feels like he’s helping.

...

After breakfast Peter goes on a run.

Tony actually suggested he go, which came as a surprise to the boy because last time he was reluctant to let Peter leave alone. Which Peter gets. He went out alone he bought sleeping drugs and got hit by a car. Not that he’s complaining about his sudden freedom, though. Peter is more than happy to get away from the hotel for a bit to stretch his legs.

He laces up his sneakers and goes out without a jacket, hoping it’ll motivate him to work up a sweat so he doesn’t stay cold. Then he bolts out of the Baymont.

Peter tries to makeup for spending so much time in bed in just a single hour. He goes hard. He picks semi-nearby park and goes as fast as his legs will let him.

It’s not as fast as he remembers.

He tries to go faster, people are looking at him weird. Some random park-goer is calling out to him, asking if he’s alright.

But it’s still not as fast as he remembers going before.

...

Peter walks back. He’s short of breath still, but this time it’s a good short of breath instead of a ‘forgetting how to breathe’ short of breath or a ‘throats to tight for air’ short of breath.

Happy’s car isn’t in the parking lot, the boy notices as he spots an empty space. He wonders if one or both of the men left for something.

He takes the stairs up to the suite, wandering down the wrong hallway before he gets to the right one. When he’s right outside the door and struggling with the keycard (he was never in hotels that much okay it’s harder than it looks) the door opens from the inside.

A blond man with a blond beard stands there. The beard throws him off, but only for a second because who isn’t used to seeing that face.

Peter stares wide eyed at Steve Fucking Rogers and Steve Rogers stares back less wide eyed but undeniably surprised. They both just stand like that, Peter not moving out of the way to let the man out and Captain Rogers not moving back to let the boy in. From the doorway, Peter catches a glimpse of Tony in the mainroom. He feels a palatable tension oozing out the suite, clotting the air.

“Peter,” Tony calls. “Come in. Let him in, let him in.”

So Rogers does. He steps back to let the boy enter and then shuts the door, even though he was just leaving.

When Peter walks in, he sees why Roger’s was so surprised to see him. The bed he had buried himself in is freshly made. His two backpacks are hidden from view, probably shoved in the other room. The kitchen looks unused.

If Peter didn’t know better, he’d say Tony had been staying in the suite alone. And clearly, if the look Captain America was giving him was anything to go by, Rogers didn’t know better.

“Tony, I didn't know you were expecting company.”  
Immediately, almost as if he expects Rogers to lunge at the boy, Tony cuts through the room and gets in between the two.

“Well.” Tony begins. “He didn’t know you were coming either, so it’s even. Peter, stop staring, ignore him. Go into Happy’s suite and listen to music or something. Do whatever teenagers do to entertain themselves and burn time-.”

“Tony. Who is this?”

Peter’s back to staring.

Suddenly Tony’s facade is gone. Is voice isn’t so sharp, not so funny. “Alright. Peter, Captain Rogers. Rogers, Peter. He’s a beloved intern who’s had some bad luck recently. I’m watching him for a bit.”

Peter feels himself recoil before he even registered the words. His gaze snapped from the captain to Tony so quick that the man takes a step back. Peter can see Tony going over dozens of ways to make what he just said less damning but Peter’s already on him. “You. Can’t just, tell him why I’m really here, huh?”

“Peter-”

“You know. You’re adopting me. Pretty big deal. Not just ‘watching over him for a bit.’”

“Tony, what is this-”

“Peter, we can talk later can you please give me a couple minutes with Mr. Rogers-”

“Why can’t he know? Are you going to, to try and hide it from everybody? Am I a secret? Embarrassing? I don’t get it-”

“Kid, please. Of course not. But this is more complicated that you think.”

“He’s Spider-man.” Steve deadpans.

Tony is frozen. “How the fuck did you figure that out already?”

“Language.”

“Okay, no,” Tony shakes his head. “I’m not about to be told laguage by Captain America. I earned my right to curse.”

Roger’s gestures to Peter. “His voice. It’s familiar. Kinda unique.”

“Just his voice?”

“He talked a lot when he met. Though brief, it was... memorable.”

“Well, okay. Spider-man, Captain America. Captain America, Spider-man. Glad you got to officially meet. As Peter blatantly pointed out, I’m adopting him, and that’s that. If I remember right, you were just about to leave, Steve.”

“He’s spiderman. What is he, fourteen?”

“Fifteen.” Peter defends.

“Okay, so I hit a fifteen year old-”

“Fourteen at the time,” Peter admits and tony sends him a sharp look, because maybe when his age is being questioned he shouldn’t admit to that.

“Even better! I hit a fourteen year old. He’s Spider-man. You recruited a fourteen year old. Did he even know why he was there?”

“Irrelevant.” It’s funny, Peter thinks to himself, when Tony, the master of rambles and the whole eccentric billionaire shtick, is reduced to one-word defenses.

“He’s a child.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, I can’t even- I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have-” Suddenly they Steve is done pretending Peter isn’t there. He turns back to Peter and takes him all in. “I dropped a loading bridge on you.”

The boy doesn’t like the harrowing look the man’s eye. And while he wasn’t wild about the loading bridge, it didn’t really hurt so he doesn't see what the big deal is.

“It’s okay,” Peter says.

“No, it’s not-”

“Peter, child whom I love and cherish,” Tony interrupts, “would you please go to the other suite to let us talk?”

They both look at him and Peter stands his ground. He’s still bubbling. He’s considering carrying this out, bring attention back to the ‘beloved intern’ part.

“I don’t want to.”

Then Captain Rogers turns his whole body to him and places a hand on his shoulder. He goes so far to bend over a little bit to make them more eye-level. “Son,” Roger’s starts with a careful unease, “Tony and I need to discuss some things, man to man. Just for a couple minutes, if you can spare it. We’d appreciate it very much if you could give us some privacy.”

Peter just stands there dumbly and blinks because Captain America, the embodiment of truth and justice, just called him son.

And he didn’t like it. As a bad taste develops in his mouth, he finds he didn’t like that at all. In fact, he might’ve liked that even less than ‘beloved intern’ and ‘child whom I love and cherish.’ While they all stand there in an uncomfortable, clearly temporary peace, Peter wonders why that bothers him so much.

Well, other than the obvious. Ben had called him son. Ben called everyone younger than himself son, and while that sometimes made Peter jealous, he had called Peter ‘son’ more than his actual name. But other than reviving a dead pet name, Peter can’t figure out why this is bothering him so much. The more he looks at Mr. Rogers, the more upset he gets, even. Then it clicks. The look on his face, the forced half smile meant to comfort a child, the stooped posture made to make himself less big.

Roger’s has that look on him, the pity look, or a variation thereof. It’s not wholly on his face but in the way he stands, the way he speaks.

Peter looks Captain Rogers straight in his too-blue eyes. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

The Captain takes a step back. Tony takes a step forward and by the pointed look he sends Peter’s way, it’s clear Peter was just supposed to take it. But he’s not going to.

“Like what, Peter?” Rogers asks innocently.

He used Peter’s name. In an effort to be personal, Peter recognizes, to be personal to make what he just said and did seem more sincere and genuine. Peter can tell by the frozen look to him that Rogers knows what he did and is ready to backpedal.

“Like I’m a little kid. Or dumb. Or a dumb little kid.” Peter states like it’s obvious, because it is obvious. It doesn’t fly over his head.

“Peter.” Tony’s soft warning, the boy knows that next time it comes it won’t be so soft.

“What do you mean, Peter?” Man, Captain America is really trying to make eye contact.

Both men are very quiet in waiting for his response and the boy takes his sweet time to formulate it with narrowed eyes. “Just. Don’t talk to me like that. ‘Son?’ How you stoop to my level? Putting a hand on my shoulder? ‘Tony and I need to talk man to man.’ We... we just met and you don’t like me, you don’t have to p-pretend to, or talk to me like that.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I don’t dislike you-”

“Well, I don’t like you and we don’t need to get so personal. And I’m not a kid.”

“Holly shit, Peter, stop, stop now. Other room, now.” Tony is waving him away, exasperated. Then, like he decides simply directing the boy won’t work, he starts towards the other room himself, but then his legs lock.

“Better yet, if you’ll excuse us, Steve. In fact, maybe we could sort this out later, hmm? I, uh.” He clamps his hands on Peter’s shoulders from behind. “We need to talk.”

...

Captain America left. Only now, sitting on the bed with Tony standing above him ready to tear his hair out, does it occur to Peter that he may have overreacted.

He just told off Captain America. He just told off Captain America poorly. Ned’s gonna freak out when he tells him.

“Holy shit.”

“You keep saying that.” Peter can’t read Tony. He’s never been the best at reading people, but he’s gotten pretty good at guessing what Tony’s feeling. But not now. He’s angry, sure, but he’s also trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, well, holy shit. I- I can’t. Peter. Why did you do that?”

Peter is somewhat aware that he wouldn’t have done that just a week and a half ago. He wasn’t this volatile or angry a week and a half ago. He used to be real good at just eating whatever he wanted to say and forgetting about it. “I didn’t like it- he, he, fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know why I did that. It kinda? Sounded better in my head?”

“Yeah? No shit? That was a lot of teenage angst to drop unprompted on a national hero whom I work with?”

“You, uh, probably don’t let people talk to you like that.”

Tony halts like someone pressed pause. He slowly reanimates. “I... Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t,” Tony concludes. He stops for a moment like he’s got a lot to figure out. Or like he can’t think of what to say next. Or, Peter thinks, like he simply doesn’t want to say anything next and is looking for a way out.

“Don’t do that again. Don’t ever talk to an adult like that. Just-”

“Okay.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

Tony nods, because that’s what he wants to hear, and they’re done.

...

They don’t move into the penthouse Sunday.

Sometime after Steve left Tony had a very long conversation with child services over the phone. It’s finally decided that Peter’s social worker is going to review the Penthouse before they move in to confirm it is a fit place for a child to live.

And that is going to take at least a couple days.

“It’s like they think I’m moving you into a meth house, booze everywhere. Making you sleep in a dog bed. Feeding you rusty needles and money.”

“It’s probably, like, the necessary procedure. I bet they always have to look at the place first, you know?” Peter says in a small voice.

Tony is looking at his cellphone like it bit him. Like it’s the phone’s fault for their delayed move. He very well looks like he’s about to shoot the messenger. “Maybe,” he says. “But then why did they spring this on me now? Did they expect we’d live in a shitty hotel forever? They didn’t ask to inspect my other residences-”

“I don’t know.” Peter says.

“I don’t know either.” Tony says.

...

The day passes. Night comes. Peter stares at the hotel ceiling for an hour before finally falling asleep.

...

Peter is standing in his kitchen in the dark. It’s not completely dark, as light comes in from the windows and from the TV still on in the other room. It’s screen is playing static and it’s on mute.

Peter is standing in his kitchen watching as Aunt May scribbles a note out on the counter. She tucks hair behind her ear, goes over her penmanship and finishes with scribbling a heart at the bottom. Its funny, he thinks, to see her do something so natural and domestic. Writing a note for him. Pinning it on the fridge with delicate fingers.

He likes seeing her like this, whole and healthy instead of dead and cold.

Aunt May looks around the dark kitchen with her hands on her hips, as if she knows it’s the last time she’s ever going to be in it. She eyes the dirty counter top, huffs at the dishes still in the sink, and then she walks away

She never looks at Peter. Maybe he’s invisible. He feels like he’s watching a movie more than standing in the room.

She starts walking away. He shuffles after her.

“May.” He croaks out just as she opens the door and threatens to walk out. Threatens to end the dream.

The boy looks to her and thinks that if he can’t talk to her now, he won’t get the chance again. “May.” He repeats louder

She spins around. “Oh! Hey sweetheart. I’m gonna run out for a bit.”

“May.” He can’t find the rest of what he wants to say, just pieces of it. “I... I’m sorry, I don’t- I’m sorry. I love you.”

“You better be sorry, bub.” She points an accusatory finger at him. “Those dishes were supposed to be done yesterday. You’ve been slacking on chores.”

“I... the dishes.”

“Yep. Don’t pretend like you forgot, I’m onto you, Peter. I know you're methods. Next thing you’re gonna ‘forget’ your english assignment, and then ‘forget’ your class schedule-”

“I love you.” Peter says as she stands half in the door, half in the hallway.

She blinks, because while they have always been open about their feelings, they don’t usually blurt them out like that.

“Love you too, Peter... Everything okay?”

No. Not in the slightest.

“I don’t want you to leave.” He whines, the tears threatening to spill.

But Aunt May doesn’t see any of that. She doesn’t notice how he shakes, how his voice warbles. It’s like she’s blind, oblivious. “I’ll be back by dinner, okay? Just... work on your chores for your uncle and I, okay?”

The air in the boy’s lungs freezes and all the hair on Peter’s body stands on end.

For your uncle and I.

Ben.

And while the boy stands frozen, May slips out the door and she’s gone. The boy is left alone in a dark apartment, his heart skipping every few beats and his breathing uneven.

Then Peter wakes up.

...

Ten minutes later Peter is rummaging around for his wallet and sneakers. He’s going to his apartment. He has to.

He has to go home and do the fucking dishes.

He can’t rationalize it to himself even, he just has to get back to Queens and be in his apartment one more time before he’s hauling shit out of there to move. He misses her so bad. He wants to see the family pictures of her on the wall, and he wants to imagine those from now on instead of the image in his or her frozen in a morgue.

Despite getting in trouble for sneaking out just a few days ago, the boy is determined. Steadfast and driven. If he’s going to do anything ever then he is doing this now.

He leaves through the for door, just like last time, and waits outside it for only a split second to see if either of the men are about to rush after him. Then he wanders the empty hallway to the elevator. As he presses the down button, his hands sweat and his shoulders ache from an invisible force.

When the elevator opens and he peers inside the tiny room, he decides to take the stairs.

Peter creeps down the three stories like at any point an alarm is going to start blaring. But nothing happends, at least until he makes it down to the empty lobby and turns towards the doors. He’s almost out of the building when the elevator he never took dings and the doors open.

Peter turns around very slowly.

Mr. Stark walks out of the elevator.

“Where you going, buckaroo?”

Shit.

“Yeah, shit is right. What the hell are you thinking?” The man crosses the rest of the room.

He must’ve said that out loud. He watches as Tony approaches and feels himself shrinking. “I, I just- I, uh-”

“Out with it, I’m waiting.”

Tony is standing right in front of him and reaching a hand out to grab him.

“I just want to go home.”

The two of them pause and the lobby is completely silent. No one stands at the front desk, no janitor is cleaning the floor, it’s just the two of them and the two of them don’t know what to say.

“To your apartment,” Tony eventually asks but doesn’t really ask.

“I have to," Peter confesses.

“You have to.” The man deadpans, “You have to go to your former apartment at four AM.”

Peter can only nod.

Tony blinks at him. He looks tired. “And why would that be?”

“I...” He swallows. “I have to do the dishes. I forgot.”

Tony is wide eyed. For the first time ever, Peter thinks Tony Stark, the rambler, is speechless. Speechless at the whole absurdity of it. Then, just to prove Peter wrong, Tony speaks in a sharp voice that makes Peter shrink even further, if possible. “You sound like a child, this, this is ridiculous, You couldn’t just ask to at a reasonable hour-”

“Please. I just gotta.” He’s staring at his shoes and he’s fully aware of how he sounds. He keeps asking Tony not to treat him like a kid but here he is, being a dumb kid.

Slowly the steam leaves Tony and he replaces himself with a more sympathetic version of himself. A gentler, easier version with less jagged edges. “And that’s really what you were doing. Going to walk home, to Queens?”

He nods.

“Well, you’re not. That's dumb. You’ll get mugged or something. You looks super muggable right now, do you know that? It’s not like Queens is right next store- it’s too far, it’s too late.”

Peter whines, “I know.”

“Okay. No walking.” Tony fishes around in his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. “We’ll have to drive there.”

...

Tony sits quietly at the kitchen table as Peter folds up the note off the fridge and shoves it in his wallet. Tony says nothing as he watches the boy roll up his sleeves and get to work on the dirty, crusted over dishes.

Peter can’t help but think how they wouldn’t be so bad if they were done a week and a half ago. He doesn’t complain. He scrubs at the dented pans with blurry eyes until they are spotless. Then he cleans the rest of the kitchen, despite it not being very dirty. Maybe a little dusty, but not dirty.

Still Tony stays silent as Peter brings out a mop and runs it across the tile several times. He doesn’t say anything when Peter goes through the fridge, either. Dumping expired milk down the sink and old food in the trash.

Only when Peter gets a ladder to wipe the spiderwebs out of the corner does Tony says something.

“Why are you doing this, bud?” He asks.

Simple. Straight forward. Something Peter can appreciate, but not now.

“Because I never did it, then. These spider webs have been here for like, a year. Or a month, or something. And I looked at them all the time but never did anything, you know?” Peter sets up the ladder and goes up with a duster.

The answer isn’t a satisfying one.

“Peter. What’s this really about?” Tony prompts.

The boy ignores him and focuses on the near invisible spiderwebs.

“Peter.”

A warning. A soft one, but the boy knows that next time it comes it won’t be so soft. Like he’s giving up a ruse, Peter stops and looks down at the man sitting at his little kitchen table. He looks tired. Old.

“I had a dream.” He confesses.

Tony wets his lips. His eyes brighten a little. “About what?”

“May.”

Tony nods. “Okay, what else?”

“I was back here. And- and she was about to leave, you know? But I couldn’t get her to stay, and she didn’t get that, that I-” The handle of the feather duster snaps in Peter’s hand. He looks at the two pieces, then back to tony, then back to the last spiderweb, and then to the pictures on the far wall and he feels something in him sinking.

“Hey, why don’t out come down from the ladder.” Tony is next to him, guiding him down when the boy doesn’t even remember him getting up from the table. Peter resists at first. He doesn’t know why. At this point, it’s just instinct. But there is no reason to be rebellious right now so he stops himself and lets Tony guide him out of the very clean kitchen and into the open living room.

He lays Peter down on the couch. Peter watches him take a seat in one of the armchairs, one that looks to old and worn for a man so rich to even look at. But Tony kicks off his shoes and makes himself comfortable. His movements are thick with exhaustion, the same kind that is seeping into Peter’s vision at the moment.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought you here.”

Tony turns away from in in the little arm chair. “It’s fine.” His tone suggests it’s not that fine. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

Peter presses himself into the crevice of the couch. He watches Tony fall asleep before eventually doing so himself.

...

It’s a wonderful thing to wake up to the smell of home, Peter thinks. Before he even opens his eyes, he smells her. Her perfume, still lingering in the air. He smells the cleaning products they’ve been using for years. He smells the old popcorn smell their couch has always retrained.

When he opens his eyes to see Tony stretched out of the floor, the moment is ruined. The man is flat on his back, laying on the pillows from the armchair he migrated from somewhere in the night.

Peter lets him sleep.

They head back to the hotel around noon.

...

Suddenly it’s Wednesday and they’re moving into the Penthouse. Child Services took their sweet time inspecting the place, and by the time they move in most of their stuff is already there. Tony already implemented Friday to every room. Peter’s room is already completely furnished, as is Tony’s and the living room. The kitchen is stocked when they get there. There’s a fruit basket on the counter from Pepper.

It’s nice. It’s really nice. It’s still nice when Tony shows Peter his huge bedroom with the apartment’s old couch and arm chair sitting in the corner pointed at a sizable tv. It’s got the same coffee table as the apartment, so many of the apartment’s pictures hanging on the wall. Family photos. Photos of May and Ben and Peter. It’s like the living room of his apartment tucked into the corner of his room. There’s a huge bookshelf in the other corner and all his posters centered around a desk covered in science books. He’s got a new queen size bed pressed up against a full wall of windows. It’s an amazing view. In fact, when they toured the place Peter figured this room would be Tony’s.

But it’s his and it’s beautiful.

And it’s too much.

Despite it all, when he sit’s in there alone he can’t help but think of how empty it looks despite all the furniture.

...

Pepper comes over for dinner with takeout.

When Peter tries to eat he finds it doesn’t sit well. After a few bites he asks to be excused, to which Tony shrugs at him and they both ask if he’s okay which is a pointless question because, no, he isn’t. He asks to be alone and spends the rest of the night in his room.

He hears Pepper knock on his door to say goodbye but he doesn’t answer. Tony come in a little later but Peter tells him he’s fine and he just wants to be by himself.

Tony doesn’t buy it. But Tony leaves him be.

...

That night Peter stares at his new ceiling and wonders what would happen if the ceiling gave out. Would it collapse the floors under it, too? He was pretty sure that they don’t build skyscrapers like that. He was pretty sure it wasn’t going to fall, either, but he stared at it anyway and wondered what would happen.

“Friday, what year was this building built?”

He’s had a brief introduction to Friday. She is in every room, and Peter wasted much of the day asking her nonsensical questions and asking what she liked. She didn’t have much of an opinion on things, though, not like Karen. Admittedly, she was more equipped to answer questions un-suit related.

“The building was built in 2012, Peter.” The chirpy AI responds, not as chirpy as Karen, though.

New buildings don’t fall. Not without good reason.

“How common are earthquakes in New York?”

“There are no major fault lines around New York. In other words, not frequent or very plausible.”

“Tsunamis?”

“No. Is something wrong, Peter?” Friday asks.

He shakes his head, but then remembers that Friday’s cameras aren’t monitoring him in his room unless somethings wrong. “I need verbal confirmation-”

“I’m fine. Just. Thinking, is all.” He says.

“Tony has set an alarm for you at eight AM. It’s eleven PM now. It would be advisable to sleep now.”

“Why? Why the alarm?”

“I don’t know why. Will you need anything else Peter?”

He starts shaking his head then thinks better of it and says “no.”

Friday doesn’t say anything more. Peter is still staring at his ceiling when he falls asleep an hour later.

...

Peter is on a subway. It’s the one he takes to Mid-town, but there are only two people on board. Peter finds himself focusing on one of the far windows, watching lights pass in the tunnel. It’s going fast, the subway. It’s shaking, too. Rickey with the inside lights cutting in and out but the outer tunnel’s lights consistent, if dull.

“Pete. How are you holding up?”

Peter steals a quick glance at the man next to him, maybe expecting him to be a gruesome victim of a car crash, or a subway wreck, or, you know, being dead for over a year. But instead Ben is whole if a little gorey. He’s in his favorite flannel. The chest is stained red from the center and then blossoming red like a flower, and a long trail down like a stem.

“I don’t know.” He says honestly. He doesn't know why, nothing good ever comes from talking in his dreams.

The subway roares, the tracks underneath sound like they’re coming apart. The two of them ignore some particularly violent tremors that shake the whole train.

“We’re rooting for you, you know that, right Pete? Your aunt and I, we love you very much.”

Nausea is sneaking up Peter’s throat and he wonders if people vomit in a dream if they vomit in real life.

“So,” Ben starts. “Heard you’re a rich kid now.”

“Yeah.”

“Good. You’ll get into college without even having to worry about scholarships. Good. Just don’t forget about the little guy, okay?”

Peter briefly thinks about sharing how he doesn’t plan on college, and how his mind is so far from the little guy right now.

“Hmm. Not very talkative today, huh? That’s alright.” He swings an arm comfortably around Peter’s shoulders and the boy tries to pull away but the arm gets tighter. And tighter. Spider-strength is gone, in it’s place is normal fifteen year old strength and it’s no match for a man of Ben’s size.

But. The arm is so heavy. It sits on his shoulders and pushes down, attempting to shove him further into the dirty subway seat.

“Ben- Ben, wait, stop. Stop-”

The arm is warm. Peter feels a real heat, as if he’s being held by a human being. Then it pulls him against a broad chest and Peter is pinned against Ben’s side.

The blood from the bullet hole is catching on Peter’s shirt.

“Stop, Ben, I don’t want to h-hurt you.” But Peter couldn’t if he tried. There is an enormous weight on his shoulders that is suffocating him while the arm restrains him. He can’t even flail.

“Ben- B-Ben. I. Stop, you’re scaring me-”

The subway jerks hard. The lights inside give out. The only lights are the ones in the tunnel they pass by every few seconds.

“Hey, son. I got a quick question.”

Peter just breathes heavy and wonders why his body won’t work.

“Why’d you chose this rich asshole over your aunt?” Ben deadpans and he doesn’t sound very much like Ben.

“I, Uh, I, I-”

“Even before she was dead. Everything was ‘Spider-man’ and ‘impressing Mr. Stark!’ How do you think she felt, bud? The secrets? The lying?”

The arm tightens, if at all possible. There is a considerable amount of blood seeping into Peter’s shirt.

“Huh, Sport? Buckaroo? Petey-Pie?” Ben scoffs. “And now you’re crawling up in this man’s lap. It’s killing me, Pete.”

Peter can’t talk. He’s pretty sure some invisible force is strangling him.

And then Peter wakes up.

He’s in a largely empty room three times as big as his bedroom, an entire side of the wall is taken up by windows- god, who let there be so many windows? There are so many tiny little lights outside, all blaring, though little-

“Peter, you appear to be very distressed. Should I get Tony for you?” Friday asks him.

And slowly, like it’s still a dream, Peter grounds himself and realizes he’s in his new bedroom. All those lights are the never dying lights of New York City, and they aren’t so bright after he blinks a couple times.

“I need verbal confirmation, Peter.,” Friday presses.

Still, it’s extremely hard to ground himself when he’s hundreds of feet in the air. He still can’t breathe right. It comes in bursts of varying difficulty, and it’s not necessarily getting easier.

It’s only when he realizes his shirt is wet does he really freak out.

He’s covered in blood, he’s covered in Uncle Ben’s blood. It’s wet, so wet, like water rushing over his face wet. How is Ben’s blood still on his shirt? That was over a year ago- no, no, it was just a minute ago-

“Notifying Mr. Stark. You appear to be having trouble breathing, Peter. Turning on cameras.”

It takes many seconds for the boy to un-clamp his jaw to speak.

“Friday I think I’m dying.” He rushes out in one beat.

“You appear unwell. Should I call an ambulance? Immediate medical assistance is recommended with trouble breathing-”

“Friday, no ambulance. Silent mode, now.” Tony Stark rushes through the bedroom’s door and flicks on the light.

The boy flinches and shuts his eyes because if he thought the city was bright then this must be the sun itself. He wheezes and tries to untable himself from the sheets, but they’re clotting around him, trapping him. The bed feels warm, restricting. He jumps a mile high when a real hand grabs him.

“Peter, Peter please snap out of this you’re safe.” Tony’s rushing words out too fast for Peter to keep up.

The blood from the bullet hole is catching on Peter’s shirt. The arm is warm. Peter feels a real heat, as if he’s being held by a human being. Then it pulls him against a broad chest and Peter is pinned against Ben’s side.

Peter lets out a sob and shoves the man beside him hard.

Mr. Stark goes flying.

He hits the floor with a disgruntled ‘oof’ halfway between the bed and the far wall and lays propped up on his elbows thoroughly shellshocked.

Peter blinks against the ungodly bright light. When he finally tears his eyes from Tony to look at his shirt, he sees that it’s not covered in any blood. It’s sweat. He’s bunching it in his hand, the fabric stretched over his heart pulled taunt like he was trying to tear it off himself.

He can’t unclench his hand. It just. Won’t work.

He struggles to breath under several tons of cement and pulls at his shirt with a hand that won’t open.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what, buddy?” Tony calls carefully. He sounds out of breath, too.

“Can’t.” He’s crying. Through his ragged breathing he can’t say much more.

“Peter, I need you to relax. Deep in, deep out. Okay?”

Peter sees Tony approaching again with his hands out. He shoots the man a warning glare but it goes ignored and then Tony is at his side. He slowly takes Peter’s wrist in one hand and uses the other to try and pry the boys finger’s open.

“You’re okay.” He sounds winded.

“I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?”

Peter looks at Tony like he’s stupid. “This. All of it. It isn’t getting better. It. I can’t. I can’t. I- I-”

Then Tony flings himself at the boy and pulls against him so aggressively that he yelps and tries to push the man away but it does nothing. He won’t budge. Then, Peter realises, it’s a hug. It’s a fucking hug.

“Oh, buddy. I’m sorry. It get’s better, I promise. You can do it and you will and it will get better. Nothing stays this bad forever-”

“I don’t know if I’ll make it.” The boy manages, “this isn’t coping.”

One hand releases him to return to his useless vice of a hand that is still pulling at the front of his wet shirt. Slowly they work the fingers open together.

“I thought it was blood,” Peter confesses with a voice that sounds much too high to be his own.

“Why’d you think that?” Tony asks in all seriousness.

“I thought it was Ben’s. It was Ben’s, once.”

“When was it Ben’s.”

“When he-he was s-s-shot. I. Fuck, I. In the dream, in every dream, he’s still bleeding.”

“Peter, in, out, slower.”

“He’s. Still bleeding. It’s like I’m bleeding, too.” A year and some weeks and the blood is still flowing freely. It’s like it’s a wound that won’t clot, a gash that keeps tearing it’s old stitches out.

Ben is a huge festering cut inflicted onto Peter’s life, and it was slowly, silently healing but now it’s wide open again and being picked through.

If Ben’s a cut, Peter muses, then May must be like losing a leg.

“No. You’re not bleeding. You’re okay. You are going to be okay.” Tony is holding the kid against him closely in a way so intimate neither of them either expected it out of the other. Tony isn’t a hugger. He’s not a father figure either, but the way he’s squishing the boy into his side so protectively makes Peter forget that and he lets himself find comfort in the touch.

It’s been a long time since anyone really held Peter. His aunt did, some weeks ago after he freaked out about Vulture and the building. She held him close and they both slept on the couch for a night, just like they use to.

Now it’s Tony, not May, and he feels warmer and he holds too tight. But Peter will take what he can get. It’s like he was starving for it. For human contact that lasted more than a brief moment, more than a hand on his shoulder or a quick one armed hug used to ground him.

“I’m sorry,” Peter whines. His heart is still thundering, speeding like a racehorse's.

“Don’t. Don’t even.” Tony mutters into his hair.

And Peter cries.

Because May is gone, and his dreams are trying to tell him that Ben hates him.

 


End file.
